PVP:Yes | Distribution:Download,Retail | Retail Price:$39.99 | Pay Type:Subscription
Desktop Client | System Req:
| ESRB:T
WAR: More Layoffs, Response and Analysis
Reports have surfaced about another, more extreme round of layoffs at Warhammer Online studio Mythic Entertainment. This article reveals the nature of those reports, response from Mythic and some commentary from MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood.
The last day or two have been busy ones for the folks over at Mythic Entertainment, and not necessarily because of the recently announced Call to Arms live expansion.
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.
This announcement, combined with the reports of layoffs in late January that saw the company lay off “21 customer service employees, half of QA and all of the playtest group”, has led some players to speculate that more cuts, and perhaps even the demise of the game itself are on the horizon.
Yesterday, according to reports at joystiq.com, at least a part of those predictions seem to be coming true. Joystiq cites “several well placed sources” when it writes that a second round of layoffs has taken place, this time taking out some of the development staff and perhaps even some Senior Designers. The report puts the number of layoffs at “between 60 and 130” people.
Now, speculation being what it is, there are many who would assume that the Warhammer numbers alone are accounting for this second round of layoffs, but it is also uneful to look at the overall “big picture” of the studio’s owner (or overlord, depending on your perspective), Electronic Arts.
Yesterday, in the same report that announced Warhammer’s 300K + subscription number, EA announced that they were reducing their workforce by 11% (1,100 people), closing twelve facilities, and “narrowing [their] product portfolio”. The bottom line: Things are not so rosy at EA and there are going to be casualties.
The 11% number for job cuts is a full 1% higher than the last report that placed the cuts at 10% and that Mythic VP Mark Jacobs referred to when he said in response to the last round of layoffs that:
Two things to keep in mind:
- Our CEO JR has publicly stated theneed to cut costs across all of EA. This statement is old news and applies all throughout EA.
- As part of EA, all studios are expected to do their fair share to meet the expectations of our CEO.
It isn't any more complicated than that other than to say that we have a very large studio and pretty much every person there has been and will continue to work on WAR for quite a while (meaning we haven't started work on another game yet). When we launched, we had over 400+ people working on the game in one capacity or another so it's not like we had a small team at launch or even a small team now.
This same sentiment would seem to be re-enforced by a statement from Mark Jacobs released yesterday in response to the announcement. In the statement, Jacobs points out that while there has been a decline in staff, that the team is still dedicated to working on WAR and that the schedule for the release of the live expansion and events has not changed:
Folks
Mythic has always been committed to maintaining a high level of development and customer service to our MMO players. In anticipation of rumors regarding staff reductions here at Mythic today, this seems like a good time to provide some insight into the future of development, customer service, quality assurance and play testing at Mythic. Though we are resizing the team to move from a pre-launch to a post-launch size, we remain fully committed to creating and delivering the best WAR experience.
We have a very exciting schedule planned for new WAR content and that schedule is unchanged. Over the next few months, the announced "Call to Arms" live expansion events, new careers, new Tomb King themed area and RvR dungeon will be made available to our players as planned.
With respect to customer service, quality assurance and play testing, prior to the launch of WAR, we hired additional people to deal with the rush of demand associated with an MMO launch and to insure the best possible experience for our players. We accomplished that goal and as a result we had the smoothest-ever launch of a major MMO. Since the launch last year, the demand for customer service has gone down as players become more familiar with the game. Obviously, demand for a large QA and play-testing staff also falls after launch. As a result, we saw a staff reduction which is in line with the company-wide initiative. In no way does this conflict with our commitment to customer service. Staffing numbers will always map to consumer needs – it goes up when we launch new products and expand popular ones, and comes back down as players become familiar with the game.
Although we now have fewer developers on the game than we did leading up to the launch, WAR still has a larger dev team today than we ever had for Dark Age of Camelot. At Mythic, we’re committed to maintaining the trust of WAR players – we’re going to deliver the content and service that keeps you playing.
Mark
)
Now, with all of that being said, a little bit of math is in order. It should be said that I’m doing this without a background in business or economics… or even post high school math, but it seems reasonable to present at least a scenario or two.
So, let’s look only at the numbers that we know about, hard and fast: We know that at least 21 people were laid off in the first round (the number is probably higher, but since we weren’t told how many people were in QA and Playtest, we’ll just go with 21). In the second round, somewhere between 60 and 130 people were reported to have been laid off. That, for you percentage fans out there, comes out to between 20% and 38% of the 400 employees that were said to have been on the team at launch.
Now that we’ve done some math, let’s take a little bit of logic into account. Yes, Mythic has (according to reports) lost more than the allotted 11% in layoffs, but there are some things to consider here other than hard and fast numbers:
When a company like EA announces layoffs of this magnitude, across numerous studios and companies, the numbers are never going to work out to exactly 11% at every studio. That just wouldn’t make good sense, the company as a whole is going to trim jobs where they can reasonably be cut, and often a game post-launch… even an MMO, is a good place to start. Jacobs himself points this out in his most recent address, citing less need for some positions in a post-launch situation.
Looking back to November of 2007, we can see where Mythic escaped the cost cutting axe of Electronic Arts when the company announced a round of layoffs (described at the time as a “head-count reductions and facility closures”), EA CEO John Riccitiello mentioned specifically that the Mythic studio would be safe from cuts. Perhaps, with their title now out the door, EA has decided that it’s Mythic’s turn to contribute to the “head-count reductions”.
So, is another round of layoffs over at Mythic Entertainment a good thing? No, probably not. It certainly isn’t celebration-worthy and doesn’t denote a massive success beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. That being said, neither the numbers nor the layoffs themselves would seem to indicate impending doom for the game or the studio.
While we will certainly hear many opinions supporting either the one theory or the other, it is safest to say that 300,000+ subscribers is neither a dismal failure nor a roaring run-away success, but something in between: a most likely sustainable number to support a moderately-sized dev team.
In the end, whether the number of subscribers or indeed developers will grow or fall over the coming months, as well as the game’s eventual fate, remains to be seen.
Tell us something new, it's as if ppl think there's no Recession at the moment, what did ppl expect.
"recession" is being a nice excuse for many people, but i don't see it in Blizzard or CCP.
WAR has failed. Bugs aren't fixed, RVR is crap, the downfall is inevitable and obvious.
It depresses me to say this, but
goodbye WAR
Oh no, we got ourselves a code RED ppl, the "B" word has been mentioned which is bound to be followed by the "W" word, brace yourselves for incoming Flames and endless pointless arguments over who's gotta a bigger phalic symbol.
Maybe Devs will realize people don't want WoW like MMOs. If people want a game formulated on WoW they will play WoW. Devs should try to produce a real NEXT GEN MMO, and not all these shotty shallow games.
This could be the start of a catch 22 situation, EA cut jobs, WAR players panic and leave, EA forced to cut more jobs due to loss of revenue, more WAR players panic and leave, etc.
Though an MMO doesn't need more than 100 people working on it, going live with a 400 strong team seems crazy to me, I'm not aware of any other MMO, WoW included, that employs that many people for one project.
MMO's are going to do well during the recession as they are a cheaper and more consistent form of entertainment than going to a bar, cinema etc. The escapism that virtual worlds provide should not be underestimated during such a period. The cold hard facts are that WAR did not to live up to the hype and is suffering as a result.
I've always been of the opinion that PvP alone is not enough to sustain an MMO. Killing players hour on hour, day after day gets old pretty quick. MMO's are not like normal games - they have huge demands put upon them by players to keep them entertained for sustained periods. From what I've heard about WAR, it seems there is not enough variation to fill this requirement.
I would say that huge part of issue with WO is crappy engine. Atleast 1/2 of my guild in WO left the game after 1st month (most of the ppl had max lv) becasue terible game performance in meny parts of the game esp in some scenarios, TOWNS, and during huge RvR.
Thing is if you have anything beter than 8xxx like 2xx or 9800gx2 cards (i think situation was simlar for ati) you will have performance worse than on some 3-4 year old GPU....
Seriously no mater how good the game is, if you cant play it, you wont pay for the game. Its simple as that. I hope they will fix this some day and i can come back to WO, but as it is right now game is unplayable, and extremly depresing esp if you have hardware that can run Crysis in 1920x1080 with AA and AS on and maxed at around 40-50fps or over 70fps in lower resolutions....
And for example WO runs 20fps in Altdorf.... setings dont mater you can max the setings or set them to min or even force 16bit color fps is always the same...
They should make proper engine before they start making the game...
I can give you the answer why the game runs like crap, its CPU impactive now GPU impactive, most of those highpowered Vid cards ( like my 4870 X2 ) was never utilized fully.
WAR failed in 2 ways .... A very weak seige mechanic and lets face it PvE raiding is a good way to keep people playing ( esp if the mobs were contested and order vs chaos would have been crazy ).
they had crappy ideas for both of those and thats why its in the toilet.
I'm not following Blizzard closely enough to say, but if you don't see the effects of the global economy at CCP it's because you are blind or not looking.
The *entire* reason why CCP didn't televise the 6th Alliance Tournament is cost cutting; look closely and you will see it elsewhere also.
Stradden, I know your trying to be diplomatic here but saying that this isn't a failure is ridiculous. Losing this many employees and so many subs in such a short time is catastrophic for a huge budget MMO like War.
Failure Definition:
www.google.ca/search
By all account Warhammer is a failure, not because they lose money (they might not), but because they didn't even come close to their goals and hype. Now, that doesn't mean things won't ever get better, but for now... Cross your fingers I guess
That much i know that the issue is CPU related, but thats only part of the problem. The real isssu is that the game is way to much cpu dpependend and instead of utilizing big part of cpu calculations on the gpu the do it on cpu and creating botleneck at the same time...
Atm i use Intel Core2 Quad Q9650 3,00 GHz Overclocked with water cooling to 4Ghz....
I dont think my CPU is the real issue here. As example i tryed the game on 3 GPU. 9600GT 9800GX2 and 280. I had same crapy fps on the 2 last ones even tho they where few times more powerfull.
To make things funy i had 60-100 fps on 9600GT... now someone tell me its not bad engine. I can add that i tryed it on 3 difrent MB most typed of drivers available and like 40-50 crazy tricks that forced the game to run in unsupported modes through 3rd party programs. Nothing helped.
Totally agree. I really wnted to see WAR survive but unfortunately barring a miracle it will not survive the year.
Mr. Hawking......
Blizzard has laid off Twice, In June 08 and in August 08....they are scehduled to lay off again in April. Google it.
CCP has ran a skeleton crew since launch, they also currently have 3/4 of WARs subscribers. Grab a clue before you speak.
Well, regardless of your opinions of the game, companies do lay off people even if they are profitable. My company was profitable last quarter but because all stocks are taking a hit, they laid people off.
Totally agree. I really wnted to see WAR survive but unfortunately barring a miracle it will not survive the year.
I'm no MMO expert, and i agree it doesnt have the gaudy numbers that WoW has, but at 250k, how many subs do think an MMO needs to survive? How many subs do other current MMOs have?
I just cant see them shutting down within a year with a base of 250k, especially considering they just launched in Russia (last week?)
I think Mythic is just a victim of teaming up with the "corporate devil". They enjoyed gold faling from the heavens which allowed them to do so much PR and get the game out the door before WOTLK,
Now, the big man (EA) demands some sacrifice. Mythic is now tied to it and as a result must give up some of that gold that they received.
if Mythic was doing this without EA support, would they have launched yet?
I don't think 300k is anywhere near a "door closing" number. People just think a game has to have WoW numbers to be a success. Truth is, WAR has subscriber numbers as good as any western MMO besides WOW. I'll be glad when that obsolete pile of garbage starts it's inevitable decline. They can only polish that old turd for so many years... When it's numbers aren't throwing off everyone's expectations, maybe we can all start talking about sub numbers reasonably again.
Mr. Hawking......
Blizzard has laid off Twice, In June 08 and in August 08....they are scehduled to lay off again in April. Google it.
CCP has ran a skeleton crew since launch, they also currently have 3/4 of WARs subscribers. Grab a clue before you speak.
yet wow increases its subscriber numbers and so does eve.
eve was announced not to be easy to get into. Eve was never intended to be a massive mmo like most others. they did not hype their game much less falsely advertize it. They had their own official fourms from the start and had confidence in their product. While not big in numbers. Eve is one of the few mmos that have retained its subscribers and has grown.
mythic and its precious mark Jacobs Lied about their product. They refused to make official forums (til now well not yet)because they knew their product was flawed and NOT ready . They hide their problems with future promises and lies. They depended on Fansites to be baised to their favor. They didnt want potential buyers to be turned off if they had official fourms swamped with unhappy players speaking bad about all the problem the game currently has.
yet still they hpyed alot of people due to ip involved wich is the warhammer ip. they had a huge amount of players at the start and now they lost about 60% in a few months, infact more because that was the last quater of last year its not including jan and feb of this year. the truth is their numbers will continue to decline.
ccp started small with their game eve. over the years it grew. it got better. its getting more stable. when a big pvp war is comming up they quickly send resorces in the area where its gonna happen to allow a less laggy battle. before it was not like that and you would end up lagging to hell on a huge scale battle. they have been working on every concern their player base has.
not mythic. they have been ignoring many issues. They have not made anything to retain the lvl cap players. or atleast fix many issues of the little end game they have. They just expected everyone to fill up their tome of whatever thinking it will cover up till they can add more stuff.
yep 2 new classes are comming, which have been tested in beta, then removed and now are finally being implamented. Thye mention somthing that wont be out till summer which is their new area. as the game is. till summer is to damn long for the new part.Mythic is hypeing an event in hopes to retain and swell their numbers.
During development, Warhammer Online was eventually operating with a 400 strong work force. That 400 strong workforce represents the largest MMO development team that I am aware of. If I am perfectly honest, it was an overinflated number right from the start that always suggests Mythic would be hit by noticeable redundancies at some point in the future. Even if the game had performed exceptionally well, that 400 strong team would have been cut down to a post-launch size. The only difference is, in that situation the community wouldn’t have jumped all over it as if it spelled doom for Mythic and Warhammer Online.
Mythic escaped an initial round of redundancies so that the development process of WAR was not hindered by staff changes. It was logical to assume that they would make up for this later on once WAR had launched. Eventually they did, with two rounds of redundancies taking out around 150 staff members. The thing to remember though is that it was always expected. The size of the development team was always questioned and – as I have said – many believed it would be downsized regardless of the success of WAR.
This preposterous talk about how Mythic and Warhammer Online is going to close soon because 150 redundancies and 300,000+ players is infinitely bad needs to stop. It just perpetuates my belief that game communities should be treated like a collection of mindless sheep rather than a collection of intelligent people. Screaming blue murder only emphasises your ability to take all of this out of proportion and blow it up to outrageous levels. Warhammer Online is not likely to close in the next 12 months and I’m more realistically hedging that we’ll see subscriber numbers increase - possibly past the 500,000 mark - by Christmas 2009. There are many reasons for this, not least the fact that over the last 3 weeks, I’ve seen more people returning to WAR than leaving.
300,000+ subs is still returning enough money to keep the studio going and make money whilst they are at it. Why would you close a studio that is in that position? Yes, Mythic failed to meet the hype but then every MMO that has release in the last 4 years has failed to meet the hype. Standard sub numbers for western P2P MMOs rest between 200,000 and 500,000 subs. The only MMO to defy this convention is World of Warcraft.
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.
Ok, for starters I think a lot of the nay-sayers here just hate WAR and are WoW purists but that's just me. I'm not here to flame them, however. I would like to point some things out. WAR is actually one of the best ones out there right now whether you choose to believe it or not, the ratings speak for themselves as well as the fanbase.
You can't blame the game or Mythic. Who here has played Dark Age of Camelot? /Raises Hand. DAoC was a great game and you could tell the developers really enjoyed what they do. And there's a saying in the gaming industry that happy developers make great games. No, no, it's not Mythics fault. I blame EA.
EA used to make good games, back in the days of the first Medal of Honor and the early Madden games. But they got too greedy. I kinda look at it like when Hasbro bought out Wizards of the Coast. A bigger company sees a smaller company whose doing really well and makes a great product. The bigger company turns around and buys the smaller company so they can make games for them to increase their profits.
Then here's where corporate greed rears its ugly head. The larger company is losing money because of other ventures not doing what they wanted *cough*EA's Flagship Studio*cough*. This in turn cause them to lay off people in the companies they control so they don't have to worry about paying them so they can keep their pockets fat.
EA also has the tendencey to rush a game into stores. It's not the developers fault if it gets released early. I'm pretty sure they would have pushed it back more but EA said no because of the declining economy and just told them to release it, hence they took out 4 classes and 4 cities to keep the "you promised us" flame to a minimum. Also WAR is still new and I always expect the first 4-6 months of a game to be buggy and such. The consumer doesn't help the situation when Americans as a scoiety has gotten impatient. We are in a "give it all to me now" age. WoW wasn't perfect when it launched either and if you compare the early days of WoW to the way it is now then you wouldn't even look at it. It has a few years on WAR (which is only 4 1/2 months old). MMO's take time, to perfect even out of the box. A game only has to sell 150,000 units for the company to come out even. 300,000 says they're doing fine.
All in all if you must flame and blame somebody; flame EA...they have killed hundreds of good games and ruined good careers because of their greed. I was a Beta tester for Mythos and when they closed Flagship studios I was very sad to see that one go because that was a great MMO in the making.
I'm glad. I hate theme park games and how they have dummied down the MMOG genre.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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):
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 .
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 :)
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:
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.
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 ?
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.
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 .
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.
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.
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 .
I just recently cancelled my subscription to WoW to take a needed break from the PvE and PvP BG and Arena grind. Not because I lost interest in the game as a whole but because I was probably grinding too many things right after the WoTLK launch and trying to do too much at once. So no, not playing WoW anymore either right now.
I decided to try WAR instead. And I was entirely surprised at the amazing difference there was. WAR seemed to be unpolished, empty, devoid of content, devoid of PvP which was supposed to even be the strong point, boring quests, boring as a whole more or less. Then the complete lack of stuff to do when maxed out. Knocking on a door and performing a PQ over and over was NOT what they promised for endgame. And speaking of promises, where is the war in WAR actually? Fanboi WAR spammers were rampant on the WoW forums for months and months, they always used the same phrase, there is no war in Warcraft. Well ya know what, there sure as hell isn't any war in Warhammer either, quite a lot less to be honest.
I was just totally surprised that a game could launch in that state today. I think I'll stick to various single player and multiplayer games for a while instead.
QFT
Didn't know people were actually having issues with this game FPS wise. The game runs rediculously smooth for me on my Q9450 OC'd to 3.2ghz. With 2 Ati 3870s in CFX and 3 gbs of riznam. WAR to me failed because it just got boring when u got to tier 3. Doing the same stuff over and over again isn't fun and just renaming the quest because ur killing something else isnt unique quests. PQ's were fun thats about it. But that became the same crap after awhile. The game needed to have a good PvE side i would agree because sometimes u just dont feel like seiging the SAME FREAKING CITY!!!
I'm convinced that for some reason many MMO forumites have some kind of long-term memory problems when it comes to recalling the performance of other games.
Take release bugginess - WoW was an awful mess when it released, it took - what - a year to iron most of the worst out? WAR had a much smoother launch than that - and genuinely the smoothest I've personally been part of - and yet it's epic fail because Altdorf stutters on some machines. Anyone remember the laggy hell that was Bree in the first month or two of LOTRO?
LOTRO is actually an excellent example. Does anyone not remember the "fact" that LOTRO was epic fail about six months in? That it wouldn't live out the year? The end game was non-existant, there were no good raids, PvMP was horribly broken, people were quitting as soon as they hit Angmar, and so on. And yet with the Moria release LOTRO is being lauded as one of the best options for a PvE game out there. This from a game that was claimed to have 100K subs at best about a year ago, and hadn't added servers since shortly after launch.
It's nuts. So many fanciful tales made up to suit the way the wind blows.
CCP damn near failed right out of the gate. It went months with subs in the thousands. The only thing that saved it was that the original dev team was on a shoestring budget and had a huge passion for it - more like garage developers than a professional game house. Bungled release, huge exploits and a massively unfriendly game experience to new players could have sank it right there - but their secret weapon was the single game server.
MMO players all judge a game's success by feel of population. In EVE you could see the population of the entire game all at once - right on the splash screen at that. Instant feed back that the game wasn't dying and so the herd panic never really took hold.
Rant aside....
WAR will be fine. It'll stabilize (if it hasn't already) and the remaining devs will continue to improve the game (the team's still huge for an MMO live team - I'd expect many more to move on or get let go in the near future TBH). It's pure wishful (and malicious at that) thinking to doomsay anything about doors closing at year's end.
Just to add, recession is effecting MMORPG's. Do a google search, and you can find that out. This layoff should show you that if the search doesnt. This layoff doesn't suprise me with the quater losses they had. Mythic should be ok, as long as they continue forward and dont let bad times get them down. People sitting here thinking recession doesnt effect gaming in general are just putting on blinders. EA and Sony are only the start of things to come. Blizzard, or shall I say Activision Blizzard merged before they recession hit. They restructed at the right time and since they pretty much rape the online industry, they can afford to keep people on. Plus thier company size is so huge, they just move them on to other projects, where other companys like EA dont have the option.
Put it this way, Activision = smart. The rest of the gaming developers are playing catch up.
Facts:
Activision Blizzzard owns a 20% stake in NBC Universal
They also own stake in several advertising companies.
They have deals with several magazine companies.
They also have deals with smaller gaming companies and thier projects.
In essence, Activision Blizzard is to gaming like Microsoft is to Operating Systems, at the lead of the pack.
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.
I did not take box sales into account, but we also have to remember that EA picked up Mythic during a close-to-release (year, to a year and a half?) period of development. That said, who funded Mythic originally? Was it totally based off of the profits generated from DAoC, or were there third-parties involved? We don't know, but if a third party(s) was involved they would've either been bought out by EA (which isn't very likely), or remained as share holders. This can pose a bit of a problem especially when factoring in box sales (pre-existing agreements and what not).
I hate making assumptions but to answer your question about whether or not EA would shut down WAR if it were loosing profits and not recouping; this is tricky, but I have a couple of possible answers.
1. EA definitely is not going to shut down WAR prematurely; most people understand that these games can (and often do) take time to evolve/mature. EA i'm sure understood this going in, they would have been fools not to. It would take serious losses to shut WAR down, especially due to the invested time, energy and money in the project.
2. Morale; I find this to be rather intriguing because while EA is a business that operates like any other for-profit business (seeks to increase profits), I believe it's very likely that EA would continue to take a loss with WAR (if there is a loss to be had) to maintain morale and their reputation within the industry. I say this because WAR is not an ordinary game developed by an ordinary studio, and EA is still fairly new to the MMO space (I realize they've owned UO for quite some time, but that's not necessarily a 'competitive' game in the current market).
We have reached a end of an age, and developers are begginning to realize that if they continue to target the WoW audience then the future is quite bleak. The late adopters (AoC, WAR) however, would absolutely never admit to this, but I believe it's evident in their financial reports.
As cutthroat as we know EA to be , Do you think for 1 minute that they would launch the Russian servers this week if they had the smallest inclanation of War failure,shutdown etc..
To the contrary they are supporting it 100%
They knew these #s long before this weeks Financial report ..and it hasnt stopped them ..
Now onto Russia , as i said before this is a huge untapped market..And is really a very smart move .. None of the other games we talk about have dedicated Russian servers .. West, Asian and Oceanic is the norm..
Russia is a hotbed of some PC gamings hottest developers in the business today and has a huge playerbase screaming for an "A" title MMO like War to give them some love.
Apparently the servers are swamped from what ive read ..No #s have been out out yet but lets assume , they can get modestly 100k subs from Russia...
Standing at 400k with a free exp coming 2nd qtr ,should generate some more subs...and many will return with the Darkness Falls mechanic.. I said it from day 1 it was needed and many agree, and are waiting for these mecanhics to be implemented into War...
Now lets consider the Asian launch they are promising for June.. does anyone here think EA would launch Russia and continue support for an Asian launch if they didnt believe in War..
How many subs do you think War will get in Asia, i think in excess of 500k in Asia is very attainable and a modest # again...
People need to just enjoy there games and Have fun and stop wishing bad fortune on others , As much as SOE has poed me i really dont troll around gigglin like a jackass hopin for a failure .. I voice my opinion ,{cancal sub} and move on ,and really could care less ....
IMO opinion War has established a great playerbase and is taking all the steps in the right direction with updates, patches ,content and mechanics to be successful , they are also taking the proper marketing steps..
If the falter in these things and make the game UNFUN ill voice my opinion and move on ..
Of course they would, it is a recognized global business strategy to start off-loading failing First World Products on Third World countries ... ha! It's called GREED. McDonald's profits are falling dramatically in the West, so they concentrate their efforts on other under developed markets. Please note that McDonalds does not sell at all in the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Estonia) because the indigenous people find the burger to be vile and evil. In the Ukraine many of them think McDonald's is a German product. ha!
Well, its certainly not an extraordinary game from an extraordinary studio, lol. It really is just an average gaming company. They don't stand heads and shoulders above Blizzard, Turbine or many other companies. Their products to date have been right (not counting Warhammer) in line with other products in the market. They've made a GOOD game in the past but they've by no means owned the genre or anything.
Mythic is a 50/50 company with a great PR team, that's all they've ever been. Here's their work. What's extraordinary in it, save DAOC? What do you see here that would inspire a company like EA to hold onto this property?:
Noting half of those didn't even launch. Vaporware.
EA, A multinational company holding onto a game performing barely above water for "morale" purposes? When you read it for what it is, without emotions tied in, that reason really doesn't make sense, does it? A sentimental investment in today's economic times. Sounds even worse. EA has nothing to worry about except for one thing: that is shareholder satisfaction, pure and simple. This is not a local company in the neighborhood where the owner walks down Main Street and people point fingers. This company owns tons of stuff and morale is not their worry. Does this line below make sense to anyone here about a giant company?
By comparison, look at Blizzard before WoW (Online) and what they did. Now that's an extraordinary company. With their record, EA would surely keep them for "morale" because they have a pretty good record and likely could turn it around. Warhammer's biggest problem? Unbelievably, it's coding. With their "record" and "experience". Doesn't inspire confidence.
Ultima Online once was at 250k subs, where Warhammer is now and that was back in 2003. Now that is at 100k if that, so why would they hold onto TWO of these? Ultima mades sense.. it was paid for already. Warhammer is not, and then you figure in today's costs for Mythic employees- healthcare, benefits, etc... and it may already be a foregone conclusion when/if they decide. Ultima as a game is in maintainance mode with a small crew.
Not trying to knock you, but maybe you mistyped this or it came out wrong from your original thoughts?
I actually closed three accounts with WAR last week and went to Age of Conan (which seems to be on an upswing). We have been with WAR since beta and are huge fans of the IP. I'm not saying we will never play WAR again, but right now I'm disappointed with it, and so are my two sons.
In my mind the problem is that Mythic has continued to release new content (live events, 2 new classes and 2 more new classes have been announced) without fixing some of the major and even minor issues with the game. They screwed up resists for casters and there are some glaring balance issues right now. Add to that the next patch is making some sweeping changes they can't even preview to us yet for some reason. I'm not being negative here, I'm just being honest with how I feel about the game. They should stop trying to create new content and run live events with any budget at all until they fix the current game completely. Yes, these new announcements are going to get some folks to stick with it, but after 1/29 I saw a major dropoff on my server, in my guild and even I was not able to defend the game anymore.
Everyone wanted something more concrete from Mythic on 1/29. How are we supposed to feel about adding 2 new classes and the problems with balance that brings, when the team can't even fix a chat box bug that has existed since beta and many other little issues like this? I want them to fix these things, and I want them to succeed! Still, I'm not going to be lead like a rabbit after a carrot for the next great content when the game itself has so many issues.
The engine itself is very poorly designed. As others have said, it uses more CPU power than GPU power and this causes a bottleneck even on the newest systems. Another issue is that the engine just can't handle the number of people fighting in the zones that they planned. They have capped zone population to fix it, and that seems fine, but its not the only issue. How often do you get stuck on a corner or a small item sticking out of the ground? Do you feel the responsiveness of the user interface is good? I can't in good faith sit here and say it is, when I can play LOTRO or even AoC and the interface reacts exactly when I press buttons and even ques skills properly. How many times have you seen a castbar in WAR just stop for no reason? How many skills are just broken completely?
In my eyes, it isn't the recession doing this to the game. It could be the next WoW and it would still have layoffs at this time due to so many (400) people on the team. Obviously, since it isn't the success they had hoped, some of those folks aren't needed. This has no correlation on the population in the game, at this time, but the problems with the game are in fact related to the heavy losses in subscriptions. People far less patient than I am left long ago. For me, these are the same people I've been playing MMOs with since Ultima Online. They lost interest a long time ago.
I never tried Age of Conan before, but it seemed to go through a similar situation that WAR is going through right now. I don't ever think WAR is going to completely fail. Look at DAOC - they keep that game alive with just 10,000 or less accounts. On the other hand, we have already seen a delay in content and patches. At the game's release we saw tons of hotfixes and quite a bit more patches. Obviously, the reduction in work force is slowing things down.
The difference is that Age of Conan's lead was fired and replaced by someone with a proven track record of taking a failing MMO and making it profitable and fun again. Instead of going crazy with new content, new races and classes and all these live events, this lead decided to go back to the beginning and concentrate on his current and future subscribers by fixing what is wrong with the game first and foremost. From what I understand, Age of Conan isn't near the bad game (as much as people thought it to be) it was when first released. Personally, I've been playing it for a week and I'm very impressed with the engine itself which runs flawlessly for me. I've not had one crash or been stuck on one corner. When I press a button it reacts, when I hit the next one it is qued and fires off. The combat feels fierce. The game still has a long way to go, but its in a lot better shape than WAR is - like it or not - that's the truth (its also been out longer).
Last, I would have to say that Mythic and EA are going to continue seeing people leave until they fix the basics and bugs. They need to do something with PVP (RVR) to entice players to actually engage eachother instead of seeking easy conquest from unmanned keeps and objectives. PVE needs a shot in the arse and even the little things like crafting need to be improved. If you can do these things and improve the issues with the engine, Mythic can grow WAR into a powerhouse... If they can't do these things, it will continue to decline to a game with a loyal following of the IP but be as neglected as some of the previous MMOs of the same ilk (Matrix Online anyone?).
All of the above is my opinion and only my opinion.
/salute
I am sure this is not all related directly to WAR's performance, lack thereof, or failure to meet the expectations of EA execs (not MJ, the actual EA suits. There was an obvious disconnect between EA and Mythic about the games expected performance. Mythic seemed to realize it was a niche product, while EA very clearly expected something in WoW's league.)
Lets not forget EA is getting battered on several fronts right now. The ecoomy is souring, limiting the purchase of overpriced console games. They do not have alot of the huge cash cow console games outside of EA sports. Several of those huge non EA non sports franchise games are now owned and operated by their largest competitor, Activision Blizzard.
And they are facing either a major settlement or a probable court decision regarding their largest and most profitable franchise, Maden. Some rather damning smoking gun documents have surfaced indicating some collusion between the NFL Players Association (the players union) and EA regarding screwing retired NFL players out of payments and royalties for their likenesses and records. While EA is not yet a direct defendant in the lawsuit, the new documents will probably send a sh@tstorm their way. Enough to trigger a hugely expensive settlement.
Given that and given EA's tendancy to cut and gut underperforming online games (they have closed more MMO's and online games then any other company), It is likley that Mythic will see some heavy handed cuts. Personally I give MJ to April. After that if Mythic survives as a studio it will be with any independence gutted.
aha...lol...
I just can't think that any good can come from layoffs 4 months after launch. Obviously the game is not that successful and Mythic needs to chnge their approach on how they do things or it is going to be a long uneventful year for them. You also have to factor in that there will be newer mmos soon. If people honestly think gamers will stick around with a game and a company that is having major issues while better games are on the way they are sorely mistaken. Gamers will always flock to the next best thing because they want their moneys worth.
Hello!
I would be laying off Play tester's too.
Did you see the Horrible Class balancing?
If they tested this game and did not see any problem then they sure had no reason
To be employed in the first place!
Duh!
Anyone thats payed to sit on his ass and test a game, should at least be good at it!
I hope War will continue to exist and evolve. On my list it is far behind Wow on second place, but ALL others are even farther on third, fourth, .... It has its share of problems, but overall i like it.
Mythic have yet to release a trial. They have yet to release mass cross-product marketing. They have yet to release in Korea (which WILL see a population increase). In short, this 300,000+ sub number isn't counting Russia and/or Korea.
WAR launched to 750,000 box sales and dropped down to 300,000+ subscribers, which represents roughly a 55% retention percentage. World of Warcraft has a 40% retention percentage on average. AOC sold 1.6 million copies and dropped down to just under 300,000+ subscribers... All in all, Warhammer hasn't got a poor retention ratio.
One of the major problems with WAR was that lack of mainstream marketing. Mythic and EA relied heavily on product relation to sell the game. What I mean by that is they relied heavily on the relation between the MMO and the other Warhammer products popularity to get subscribers. That was a really bad tactic. They felt that because (a) it was so similar to WoW and (b) it was already a successful franchise in other respects, the product would sell itself. Sales were not poor, but they could have been better. EA have stated that they are going to pile money into studios and Mythic will be one of those studios. If EA are wise, some of that money will go into mainstream advertising and product placement on par with World of Warcraft. If EA can put a good marketing campaign in place and Mythic can fix the end game problems, there is no reason what-so-ever why Warhammer Online wouldn't grow. In fact, I'm going to assume that by December next year, Warhammer Online will be north of 500,000 subs... maybe even 1,000,000 if they pull their fingers out.
All this doom and gloom is getting boring, not just at WAR but right across the board.
I just thought I'd also point out that class balance is off so badly because the 4 new classes they've "added" recently were suppose to be there from teh start. Mythic chose to leave them out as they weren't ready yet. Now that they are going back in, we may well see improvements.
Wow..... just wow
Almost everything you just said is wrong
300k out of 750k in 3 month is a 55% retention rate? Its 41.5% and I didn't need a calculator, 70% monthly retention or so. World of Warcraft has never given any numbers that would make anyone able to know their retention rate, why are you inventing them? The closest I saw was Mark Jacob saying that the industry is guessing WoW has over 75% monthly retention rates.
AoC sold 1.6 million copies? What the hell, where do you get your numbers? They sold half of that, 800k, 4 months after launch.
Russia? Unknown factor, we don't know how much they will account for
Asia? Useless, for every 1 million asian player you only get the profit of 100k american/euro players (guesstimate) because of their payment model. I don't know if this applies to Korea as well though. You also have to comply with the insane chinese laws, recode some of your game etc.
I quit WAR a couple of months ago and am now back down to just playing EVE. I generally like my SCI-FI with a dose of fantasy on the side so I am left for the first time in years without a fantasy game to play.
Am I the only one who thinks this is a really poor use of the Warhammer IP? I mean... since when did all these various races becomes such good friends that they could draw up two sides?
What happened to Lizardmen and Skaven and Tomb Kings and... ?
This should have been a free-for-all RvR game with each race struggling for domination.
And now with all these layoffs at EA/Mythic I wonder if this will be one of those MMO's that just continues along year after year with few changes and fewer players until it becomes a cheap or F2P game used to get users into the latest EA/Mythic. game like SOE does with their neglected games.
Feel bad for these people, rough time to try to find work...
If I wanted to use the word monthly, I would have used the word monthly. There is a reason I did not. Also, forgive me for not being a wiz at maths. I admit my percentages were off. Sadly, your information about AoC and WoW is incorrect as far as I have seen. I saw Mark Jacobs make the comment about WoWs retention ratio now, but I read a study into projected sales of WoW in the west and overall retention ratio that suggests the actualy figure per total copies sold is something in the region of 40%-50%. As far as AoC is concerned, they sold over 700,000 copies in 4 weeks, so why you believe they'd sold 800,000 in 4 months is beyond me.
Apologies for the mistakes however.
The new Live Event start today, supposed to be VERY good, we will see..
Whats strange is WAR is a lot more fun then most mmos out right now especially WOW. I think a lot of people get turned off by WAR after they get their butts handed to them in pvp. They start crying about balance and bugs and lack of "war" but when I play there is ALWAYS something going on. The only downfall I see to it is by having only 2 realms there is a higher chance of one team being overpopulated.
Bad news
If things continue like this we will just see the Sims, Fifa and Guitarr hero games from EA
I knew it was crap that they bought Mythic and Bioware.
No, I don't think people quit because they suck in PvP. Well some maybe but just a few.
The reason I don't play it is that I don't like what they did to my favorite pen and paper RPG game, they cut out all the dark horror of it, took away the backstabbing and corruption of the empire...
I would love to be able to walk Middenheims streets, to take a boat up the river Reik, to spend an evning in Brettonia with duels and drinking but this game just don't give me the same rush as the pen and paper game. I guess it is not bad for what it is but it could have been so much more.
But I think the main reason many quited was that it is still to close to Wow, and they already have a high level char or more there.
Mythic should have kept the original system of Warhammer and not made it level based. Being close to Wow isn't good, Wow already have it's fans and WAR would have been better if it was closer to the fantastic RPG and tabletop games.
I'm guessing that the WoW retention ratio you mention is more complex than this. It might be the retention after 2-3 months or it would be the actual number of people playing now out of all the boxes sold. 4.5 million players (America/Europe) out of 9-10 million total box sale not including expansions alone. That would be possible although there's never been any official information on this. Mark Jacobs said that their retention rate after the initial free month was 72%+ and that DAoC was 72%. Why would you think that WoW has any less than that when its the most successful MMO there is?
Your right that AoC sold 700k in 3 weeks... no, I had to look it up because I forgot
www.joystiq.com/2008/06/30/age-of-conan-reaches-700-000-players/
Roughly 5 weeks
The 800k comes from their quarterly report from Q2 or 3, I'm not sure which
*Fixed... because apparently over 500k people and dropping, who tried it don't think Warhammer is worth paying for right now.
Doubt all those people got "pwned" and left.
Ahh the infamous waves of Doomsayers and I told you so. WAR will end soon by 2012 I tell you if it doesnt make it thru 2009.
I love the locals on this forum and their predictions of WAR and what the future holds for Mythic as they post their thoughts.
Honestly, 300k subscribers sounds pretty damn good to me and with the opening of WAR into Mother Russia, yeah this game sure sounds like it wont make it to 2010.
And I love the other posters that stated they want WAR to survive, but now they have their doubts.. I never saw so many hypocrits on this website and double talk.
I cant belive how stupid people are when it comes to What EA actually makes.
everyone seems to assume if they dont like a game/series then it must be made by EA.
Hint, Guitar Hero has NOTHING to do with EA.
I wouldn't count on Russia being the saviour of anything. In this economy a place like Russia would be not be likely to be gaming. Their economy is pretty shabby and historically they haven't had tons of people propping up many MMOs.
I don't think WAR will die in 2009 personally. It will go on to live a long life as a niche game, which isn't a bad fate for most games. Nothing wrong with niche/small market.
300k isn't so hot when the game isn't paid for yet and daily costs rising throughout Mythic and EA, and with all the forces against it (economy, new MMO releases in 2009). January in the U.S. had 598,000 job losses. When people actually spend their money from now on, they will be choosy. Days of playing games that are just "ok" are gone.
But, go Steelers!
I didnt state that Russia was going to save WAR, just saying that it cant be all that bad since the game is expanding to Russia.
The game came out about 6 months ago so its still a baby compared to most mmo's out there. It was also released during the time of a recession as well. As when it comes to the money that WAR owes for its developement, only time will tell us the fate of WAR, but (imo) I dont think this game will fold up unless EA wants it to..
Your right, I believe it will have a niche fanbase that will keep it going, but I dont see anytime soon of a major MMO that will not be a niche game.. Ever mmo we got here is a niche game it just so happens that WoW is the only mmo to be the phenom here for regular mainstream folks.
Your right again popinjay ---- GO SIX-BURGH!
Most people are missing he point here. They LOST 450k subs in 3 months, that's over 100k a month. The 300k figure was in December. Do you people think the they magically stop bleeding subs since then? They will be around the 200-250k mark now, maybe lower if the rate at which subs are decreasing didn't change. Heck just look at xfire for the last 3 weeks, if that's not enough look at sales figures from the major retailors or the actions being taken by Mythic now. They are panicking and they know they are in trouble. All remember what MR MJ said before the game released, "if we aren't adding new servers 4 months in then we are in trouble". Major mistakes have been made and in most companies that would mean the head of the company going bye bye.
I would be highly surprised if this game is still up by the end of the year.
You sure about that? Now obviously, not all 500k would have felt 'pwned', but look at that sentiment in a different way:
How many people left because they thought they'd be able to solo pvp and found they didn't like the team requiremet for winning?
How many people left because they had never tried a pvp game before and realized very quickly it wasn't for them?
How many people left because they expected better pve and left?
How many people went for the concept of WAR but found they didn't like the concept once they actually got to see it in action?
How many people left because they wanted 'winning' to come easily and didn't wait for battle strategies to develop and filter thru the community, i.e. they played the free month where everyone was running around with barely a clue how to operate as a team?
How many people left en masse with their guild, not because they didn't like the game, but because their guild leadership didn't?
and now add
How many people left because they got 'pwned'?
all those together, you might get the 500k. And looking at the above, it isn't that WAR was so poorly done, it may be that people have a lot of varying preferences and in a saturated mmo market, they have more choices to cater to their individual whims.
And lastly we go back to an argument you and I have had before:
You simply do not know that the percentage of players lost in WAR is unusual when compared to any other mmo.
Stradden in an earlier response to this thread, supports this by saying "all mmo's have a crest after launch with a steep drop off, eventually levelling out to the subscription base" (paraphrasing)
Yes, WAR lost 500k. But what if that is normal for an mmo? You throw the number 500k around like it proves WAR is a unique example of total failure, but you actually have no idea whether their loss falls within the normal parameters of all mmo launches.
Present me the exact same statistic for WoW, EQ, EQ2, UO, LotRO, VG, AoC, AC, DAoC. If you saw that all of these games had a similar loss pattern to WAR, what would that do to your argument? I may be wrong, but think, if you actually knew the above stats, and I was wrong, you'd actually have some evidence to support your claim. But as it is, that we simply don't know that WAR's loss is unusual in the business, your argument is meaningless. Last analogy: let us assume that EQ at its height had 250k subs. Let us then assume that 750 had tried it, but only the 250k remained. That would give them the same loss as WAR. Would you then say, that at its height, EQ were as unmitigated a disaster that you claim WAR is?
He's got a good point, but I think everyone is exaggerating the circumstances. ~250k subs is about right, given that games lose popularity on a curve, not a line. A few things:
1) The game is NOT doing fine. On the weekends there are still only a couple servers with above a low population rating. Part of this is due to them having too many servers, but a lot of this is due to them losing players pretty quickly. Also, and this is just speculation, but I'd be willing to bet that the 2 are feeding off each other (meaning that the population spread is leading to players leaving, and visa versa). It's not dead yet, but a change of course is definitely needed for the game to pick up steam, otherwise a 'fix' for some poor design decisions and balance / bug issues, to stop the bleeding.
2) The recession is effecting all companies across the board, in every country. That's why the term it's being given is "Global Recession". There is no stock for 'Games', each gaming studio / company has their own stock, and while it's true that the gaming industry (as a whole) is doing generally better than other industries, every industry is hurting. Even the studios that appear to be doing well. That being said, the recession alone can't account for the layoffs @ Mythic. While I do not work for EA, I think that what is most likely happening, is EA is viewing Mythic as a poor investment atm. Mythic had an ambitious project that EA thought would do well. It didn't, and while it's not yet a failure, it's certainly not producing the returns EA had anticipated. Being as MJB has been given a fair bit of leeway in regards to the game, I would be surprised if he isn't getting a lot of heat right now from EA.
On the whole, I think the majority of people are being extremely unfair to this game. Too many people seem determined to try and make the game into something it's not, and don't give it a chance to show them what the games really about. For example, the whole PvK mentallity, brought over from WoW, of avoiding conflict as much as possible, and just grinding objectives, then blaming the game for you not wanting to fight. It's gotten bad to the point where my guild can scare off 1-2 warbands with a small group of 8 players, simply because they don't want to fight. In what is intended to be a PvP game, that spells disaster. While a game's design can help lessen a mentallity, it can't force you to fight. You can't reasonably blame everything on the game. The context is there to have fun, but the majority of people aren't using it atm.
While I admittedly thought (and perhaps hoped) that the game would be doing much better than it's doing now (not a WoW-killer, but definitely a contender), I don't think (and perhaps hope) that the game is quite finished yet. I do think, however, that this live expansion (call to arms) will be the tipping point of this game. I think everyone knows there's a lot riding on this new expansion (which is more or less a giant patch) and the games success or lack thereof will probably depend on the success of the expansion.
Other than your last comment, I agree with you (especially about what is said in red - I do remember something to that affect).
I think the Slayer and Choppa additions in March will tell the tale of the game. I expect a massive population boom when it happens....but that isn't an issue. It will be if the game can RETAIN the population over time.
I seriously think a lot of WAR is a repeat of TOA in DAOC years ago. Mythic wanted to copy the hardcore PVE aspects of other games so they introduced TOA and virtually destroyed the game (I consider it one of the worst expansions in MMo history). With WAR, I think they tried to be too much like other games (not naming any names) and it just didn't work. Someone (EA or Mythic) decided that WAR should not be its own game with its own identity and just a bad copy of other games.
The community expected a serious, hardcore RVR game with some old school ways in it. What we got was far from it and while in some ways, it is is a great game, the sum does not equal the parts.
The sad part is that I do like the game but I just cannot bring myself to play it. I recently reinstalled because I thought, maybe at launch, I was not being fair to the game and wanted to give it another try. While it has gotten tons better, that are some major fundamental design issues with it and compund that with NO population at the lower levels (hmmmm just like the /level 20 thing did to DAOC - one of the dumbest designs ever)...I just can't really enjoy the game.
For everyone out there saying 300k subscriptions is "fine" I think you might be missing a few things. Maybe 300k is fine, but one thing to remember is that the developer dumped ALOT of money into making the game that they now have to recover (as quickly as possible obviously). Most of you think 300k * 15 bucks a month = oooh bags o'gold to the bank! woot!
Consider that a game studio in the US with "average" expenses will spend between 10-13k dollars per employee, per month. Do quick calcs on that and you suddenly realize that 400 (assuming this is low and is the team only, not overhead) * 10k (low side for a studio in the US) turns out to be around $4M PER MONTH.
Not sure how many months they are covering but lets say they did 1/2 these people for 1 year (25 million) and all of these people for 3 years (~150M). Even if these are off by 25% (might be... might not be) that's a TON of cash they have to recover.
Retail @$50/unit x 1M units would be 50M dollars in receipts, but they would be lucky to get 1/2 that between publishing and the dev studio so call it 25 million in their pockets for retail sales (retailer gets a large chunk, ads/marketing gets a large chunk, cost of goods, returns, fees to license holders, etc). That leaves somewhere around 150M left to recover.
Now, back to 15 bucks a month x 300k. That's about 4.5M per month of which they have to still retain and pay some staff (I think I read 100), cover bandwidth costs, additional advertising/marketing, and other misc expenses or running a business. Oh yeah, and recover their investment.
Still think 300k subscribers is enough?? If you do, well I have some waterfront property to sell you in Florida :)
Also, just because SOME MMOs can get by on 100k or 300k subs, doesn't mean they all can.
I think the best thing would be for WAR to die the quiet death it deserves and free up the Warhammer IP for a developer willing to take advantage of the depth of MMORPG material it has to offer.
WAR doesn't offer a free trial because, really, how many people quit within the first 30 days of playing? I would have, but I'm stubborn and gave it another month. My bad. A free trial would just rob them of box sales.
WAR releasing in Russia-Asia-Xanadu-Wherever, just means people saying "Meh. This is boring." in new languages.
I really don't understand people who say things like "This is the best MMO I've ever played" and "I'm having a blast in WAR". To me "WAR" and "having a blast" don't go in the same sentence unless it's something like," This Halloween I'm strapping my WAR disc to a bundle of fireworks and having a countdown to blast off".
There are other games out there. Good ones. Worth a monthly fee. Go see.
You know, WAR has some issues, but there are a LOT of really, really ignorant people in this thread talking out of their ass.
Seriously. Yes, there are a lot of low pop servers, I blame mythic for that in part. They opened a crap ton of servers at release so people wouldn't have to wait in queues to get in to the game.
Maybe they should have gone the WoW route on that. WoW wasn't all that great at release, but they had a limited amount of servers, and really, really long waits to get in. They gradually opened new servers and let people transfer off of the overpopulated servers to the lower ones. I think things would have gone better if WAR had done this instead of doing the opposite. Instead of losing a few people that got pissed off at waiting to get in, they lost a TON of people cause they were spread out too much.
The problem with this was that when people started falling off after the first month...now you had like, 20 servers too many with people spread out all over them. WAR is getting better day by day, it is tons improved since release. There are 4 or 5 servers with really, really high populations, some still have que's at times.
(note: I don't think WAR will EVER, EVER have WoW numbers..but it can be successful..though Mythic opened russian servers yesterday, and korean/taiwan are coming soon with talks of opening servers in china at a later date.)
There are several more servers with med/med pops at prime time with lower pops in the off hours.
They seriously need to look at taking all of those empty servers and combining the populations, as much as they don't want to.(and kick GoA in the ass for sucking)
I play on Phoenix throne, it is pretty damn full, and there is never a shortage of people to kill at any time of the day or night, on any day of the week.
I rolled a toon on order side of dark crag (open rvr server) the other day...holy crap!!! at like 2 in the afternoon it was order=high destro=full(18) and tier 1 was FULL of people!
Those are the only two servers I have personal experience on, but you can see several more that have high pops on them.
Most of the doomsayers quit after the first month, or November at the latest, and will sit here and cry until they are blue in the face based off of their experience from more than 3 months ago.
Can WAR still fail? Sure. If they fall behind on their patching schedule and don't find fixes for some of the major bugs etc, it can happen. Do I see another max exodus to "doom" the game? No. Do I think EA will pull the plug? No.
Could I be wrong? Absolutely, if I was right all the time I'd be a god among men. But at least I can speak with current information, rather than spewing feces out of my mouth.
Maybe Devs will realize people don't want WoW like MMOs. If people want a game formulated on WoW they will play WoW. Devs should try to produce a real NEXT GEN MMO, and not all these shotty shallow games.
Yup, it's a lot like wow. I actually liked the gameplay but no one was talking on chats and I found for the most part the community was horribly rude compared to other mmo's. The chat design added to this as did public quests which seemed to make people very greedy. It seemed people in WAR are always competing with one another even if your from the same realm. Anyhow I am sure there are about 300k that disagree with me. It's just my 2 cents.
Yup, it's a lot like wow. I actually liked the gameplay but no one was talking on chats and I found for the most part the community was horribly rude compared to other mmo's. The chat design added to this as did public quests which seemed to make people very greedy. It seemed people in WAR are always competing with one another even if your from the same realm. Anyhow I am sure there are about 300k that disagree with me. It's just my 2 cents.
You see this in a lot of games, especially people that play a month or two then quit. My experience is a lot different than yours, but I had an organized guild going into it, so I didn't really have to make friends with strangers and what not, I had groups and help any time I wanted it, and no one really cared about loot because once we got geared up we'd bank the good stuff for when someone else coming up needed it.
There have been a lot of games I've played for a month or two, and said meh! then quit. And pretty much every one of those games I joined solo with no friends, no guild etc. I pugged until I got a random guild invite, which usually barely qualified as a guild, got bored and quit.
If you have a solid guild around you the whole atmosphere of a game changes.
But yeah, it has it's problems and not everyone is going to like it. Like I said, I don't ever see "millions and millions" playing this game, but it can make good money and be successful.
I don't know why they don't just incorporate a common voicechat into all games that come out these days, not many use the chatbox much anymore.
If anything you get <insert random noob question here>, other than that, people are too busy playing to chat it up while they are killing stuff. There is a lot more chatter now that the "ICANTSLEEPMUSTREACHCAPLEVEL" phenomena is starting to release its hold on people, especially in the rvr region channels.
Only time can tell the truth in MMOs and as far as WAR and AOC goes, time is starting to tell the truth. When AOC was released people were saying that Funcom is doomed, that AOC will close the servers, especially when WAR launches.
What we have some months after WARs launch is whining from the player base, a game leaking subscribers, a studio firing devs in the hundreds. On the other hand, AOC numbers are on the rise, Funcom is very active, developing and/or maintaining AOC plus 3 other projects, with not a single person fired (from the Oslo studio which accounts for the 90% of Funcom). Kudos to Funcom, they know how to handle a difficult time and come out of a crisis stronger. Not like the firework Mythic proved to be.
Now some of you can shove the Failcom sig up your ***........
"firing devs by the hundreds'??? Are you going for a grammy nomination for most dramatic or something? I agree, FUNCOM is finally coming back up, and I'm glad but wow...you're just ridiculous.
"firing devs by the hundreds'??? Are you going for a grammy nomination for most dramatic or something? I agree, FUNCOM is finally coming back up, and I'm glad but wow...you're just ridiculous.
The report puts the number of layoffs at “between 60 and 130” people.
Plus the people that were fired a couple of months ago. I am not making it up man. Its a fact.
I tried to like WAR, I had a lot of fun Swordmastering scenarios. Fact of the matter was on good systems the game ran like crap, like it was designed on DX7 in 2001. Seriously launching a product like that in 2007 is pathetic.
Yup, it's a lot like wow. I actually liked the gameplay but no one was talking on chats and I found for the most part the community was horribly rude compared to other mmo's. The chat design added to this as did public quests which seemed to make people very greedy. It seemed people in WAR are always competing with one another even if your from the same realm. Anyhow I am sure there are about 300k that disagree with me. It's just my 2 cents.
You see this in a lot of games, especially people that play a month or two then quit. My experience is a lot different than yours, but I had an organized guild going into it, so I didn't really have to make friends with strangers and what not, I had groups and help any time I wanted it, and no one really cared about loot because once we got geared up we'd bank the good stuff for when someone else coming up needed it.
There have been a lot of games I've played for a month or two, and said meh! then quit. And pretty much every one of those games I joined solo with no friends, no guild etc. I pugged until I got a random guild invite, which usually barely qualified as a guild, got bored and quit.
If you have a solid guild around you the whole atmosphere of a game changes.
But yeah, it has it's problems and not everyone is going to like it. Like I said, I don't ever see "millions and millions" playing this game, but it can make good money and be successful.
I don't know why they don't just incorporate a common voicechat into all games that come out these days, not many use the chatbox much anymore.
If anything you get <insert random noob question here>, other than that, people are too busy playing to chat it up while they are killing stuff. There is a lot more chatter now that the "ICANTSLEEPMUSTREACHCAPLEVEL" phenomena is starting to release its hold on people, especially in the rvr region channels.
That's exactly how it went, however I have gone in cold with each and every MMO. I have never experienced anything even close to the rudeness and coldness of WAR. When I started playing COH players helped me at every turn, also eq1, Daoc, Eq2 and yes even wow's player base was fairly helpful and the chat was fairly active. You do have a point but MMO's should not only be about self. If that is what they have become, we might as well buy normal solo games. It's a shame as I think WAR could be an awesome game. Ok enough whinning from me.
I don't know about all these doom predictions from this thread, even I once had the thought but the FUN of the new Live event that started yesterday is AMAZING.
There is some much to do in pve and pvp, to chasing and killin certain players to fighting main bosses.
Mythic WILL be succesfull if they keep this up!
I also really hope they will not only continue to exist but also evolve.
For me WoW is king of the kings ... the most complete package ever. And I'm not so young anymore ... and have tried a lot in my life. Forget about cartoony graphics ... somebody may not like it (like me at the start :-)), but this cartoony graphics are masterpiece. All keys, mouse movements, mechanics, ...everthing work just as player expect to. Gathering, crafting, ah, .... they are all worlds per se. Also very original quests (like jumping on airplane and putting down mobs that jumps on), incredible underwater world with quests, flying mounts, .... etc etc. All other games put together are not so "rich". Hmm ... I hardly remember game with underwater quests, fly mounts, ...
And the second on list (even if pretty far behind) is War. IMO of course. In company of this two, all others do not make up solely for War (Aoc, Lotro, EQ, Eve, ... included) immagine for wow. AoC and Lotro have only better lore ... but because based on good books.
Btw about numbers droping heavily in december ... I also contributed to this because of WOTLK. As I see it for now, I will be for long split between Wow and War. All the rest .... I resubscribe from time to time ... and I have then enough for about a next one year.
What I really like in War are pq and scenarios and rvr in general ... in other games I never liked pvp. Here are regular part of my gameplay.
Well, enough for now. :-)
I dont get alle the people getting poor preformance.
I run the game on max (Forced AA and AF) on a 2 year old system with a new GFX card (260GTX)
and the game runs supersmooth with op to 20-25 player RvR and surprisingly good in massive battles
never crashes
all settings on high
I am constantly amazed at why and how people like wow so much. It does run smooth and has a huge player base, but for me it stops there. I guess first off I am not a huge pvp fan. So few classes, races. The crafting is a complete joke, there are little to no guild tools, class balance is horrid. I did play for nearly 3 years on and off but I have decided to never return. Eq2 and Vanguard were/are 2 games that could have been great games.
Well, that it works good on your computer doesn't actually mean that it works well on all computers.
The problem is probably either certain drivers or certain hardware that performs bad together with the client.
If you have any problems, see that you have all the latest drivers installed. It might not help, Mythic still needs to work on this issue but it lowers the chanse of getting problems, particulare old GFX drivers can cause problems.
Stability is up now for most users so things are getting better now, but it can also be because more people upgrade, new hardware seems to have less problems.
Sure if you like spending your life warping from stargate to stargate.
EVE is different and in its own way fun, but at the end of the day you can say the same about it that you can about WoW... you grind missions for cash to buy a bigger ship to grind for cash faster to buy a bigger ship, etc.
The thing I've noticed about the social aspects of the various games are that EVE seems to have the most friendly and helpful people, heck they even have an entire guild dedicated to teaching people how to play, take noobs into 0.0 space etc. Pretty cool. WoW's community, while certainly active, is MUCH less helpful and very rude/condescending and SO often filled with just random crap from people whose IQ is lower than their age. WAR, while much less "chatty" seemed a bit more mature to me (never see people spamming "anal XXXXXX" just to be morons for example).
WoW has been successful because it opened the door to the masses. Gone are the days where people can screw up their characters from poor choices of stats etc, we now have markers over quest givers heads etc. This was a good move on Blizzard's part but it has the side effect of pulling in people that are less serious about the game and therefore more immature. Games like WAR and EVE are more difficult to learn and play, and therefore less accessible, and I believe that over time, that's the reason you see those types of games have less players but more that are there to play and understand the game and not name their characters "Irpwnzdu".
I was just happy to read that even lead designers were being let go hehe. I mean sucks for them, and I mean no personal offence, but good lord...if you've played the game, being "let go" is almost too nice for the amount of money they wasted 'designing' such a weak core gameplay model.
A rushed product = poor financial returns and consumer retention.
Huh....what a novel concept. Well, in there defense, this has never happened to an MMO before. How were they to know?
/sarcasm off
Was about to write about Eve ... boring since first minute ... But, hey, if you enjoy it, play it. If there will be enough subscribers, game will continue to exist, evolve, ... or will die. Like the worst game I have ever played, TR. Actually ... the only game where I have used only few days of free play (out of 30) before permanently quit.
But about grinding fest and Wow .... i really do not understand what are you people complaining about. Does War do not have "kill 25 wolves" quests? Same Lotro, same Aoc, EQ, .... Nearly ALL quests are of this type. Well, I agree however that sometimes drop rates are terrible at wow, but never is boring.
Also in Lotro, Aoc, ... etc ... no need to search in bags ... you just click objects ... all is automatic. In Wow (ok, sometimes also in War) you must i.e. click object ... then find object in bags and read it while spirit is summoned. Or jump in water as instructed by goodess before she smashes you (which will happen if you have not read what she is saying). Many times have to read very carefuly. In other games no problem at all. Just click. Done.
Of course im speaking about newer games, games that are NOW in, not about pacman, despite was great at time. :-) Have played many games in my life (now im 45) and wow has most original and inventive quests. But also has (to my knowledge) primate in number of quests .... so it is more difficult to be inovative in all. I was never ever(!) in need to grind in Wow to progress and have leveled all possible classes.
Btw ... War is not at all more difficult to learn or play then wow. It is actually very easy ... all is marked on map. Like in Aoc. The only game (newer again) that do not have true addons and must actually read carefully quest text and explore a lot (or consult www pages :-)) ... is maybe Lotro. But which has poor mechanics and other problems.
About spamming, language, .... etc in wow. How many you said have War subscribers? 250.000, 300.000? Aoc? Well ... wow have "something" more ... so is more probable to encounter unmature persons. But in 2 years I had to put on ignore list only 1. Also is rated 12+ (not that i believe less kids are playing 18+ games ... lol).
After reading through half a dozen pages of this thread... wow, just wow. Look, WAR didn't have the best but you were perfectly able to preorder, play in OB, and cancel your preorder if you disliked the game. I played for a few months, was happy enough at first, got bored, and quit. Weighing the entertainment value against the monetary cost, it was a good deal. Better than 90% of single player console games that I buy. If you don't like the game, thats fine, but a lot of the trolls are come off as bored, bitter assholes who are just hating on the product for absurd reasons because you are completely unable to enjoy any of the many MMO products currently on the market and need to piss on someone elses parade so you can have that brief, fleeting moment of satisfaction in your otherwise miserable existence.
As for the doomsayers: EA Tiberion is reporting layoffs. Y'know, the dev. who makes EAs cashcow Madden franchise. Mythics get far more hurt from all of this, but their product did underperform by 200k subs or so. Still, you know times are tough when the dev of the game that prints money is not being spared.
I fully Agree! I get tired people yelling it is the end of the game. They remind me of homeless beggers in big cities yelling "repent the world is going to end!: and forcing their views in your face.
I'm not worried in the least about the loss of numbers. I didn't even realize there was so much negativity till I stumbled on this post. Very few players in the game are anything but happy with it. It does what it does very well namely rvr. It never was supposed to be anything else. The idea really is to level though the game by rvr. They stumbled the first couple of months with that because there plainly wasn't reason enough to open rvr. This new expansion which I'm REALLY looking forward to(far from the meh comment) pushes this even further with rvr dungions and two classes that needed representing.
Everyone has they're own taste and I've found pvp to be a rare favorite mechanic in mmo players. Most will wish for it to be there for distraction but it's only something to the side till they get back to the "real game". Even within those players that do like pvp there are are those who like to be the one man army and not deal with having to work with other players. WAR tries very hard to discourage this sort of play... basically your very likely to die if you try. So you've narrowed the field even further.
On the converse though I've found others who hate pvp love rvr. It's painless and far more interactive and changing than most other games. It's a far different way of thought than the average mmo. This is something you have to think about. This isn't killing for killing's sake it's trying to take the other side's lands and you can in this game. It's not a look alike it's unique. In this game there are 40 pve levels and 80 rvr levels. That should tell you something about the priorities of this game. A player who's reached level 40 is only something like a quarter(or less) there.
I would recommend this game but I'd ask that person "do you find the idea of the majority of the game being about rvr a good thing?" I'm unapologetic about the pve mechanics. I like them. They in and of themselves add somthing a bit new to the genre but it's not the focus here. War is. The players who haven't left aren't crying and saying how bad the game is they're smiling as they add another ork head to they're collection. The game isn't going to die, it may grow even but that's beside the point I'm happy with things as they are. Not that things arn't going to keep changing for the better. They definitley have in the last few months.
Thanks for the well written article. A nice read and most probably correct in its assumptions. Just too bad that most folks in the thread here did not even care to read it and just jumped into here to cry havoc and doom.
Nice feature from Mr. Wood, standard abysmal MMORPG forum post quality (with a very few exceptions like from Infalible, aesperus, etc.)
And I am still chuckling at those that say that the game will not survive another year...with 300k subscribers...
There are at least a dozen other MMOs out there that would sell their soul to get up to those (payed) subscription numbers.
You are right, the problem here is that EA is having big financial problems and are losing a lot of money. But it is really bad for Mythic anyways, EA will take every extra penny and might keep on firing people if it continue to do bad. If EA falls Mythic will be dragged down with them. If EA had good economy they would not cut down Mythic staff as long as the game is making money.
In worse case scenario EA will be a smaller company that only keeps Fifa, Guitarr hero and the Sims (probably Bioware too, Dragon age should sell good), that would screw many games,
Hmm a total failure...world is going to end blah blah blah.
The game has 300k+ subs and 200 to 300 employees working on it. Doesnt sound like the game is failing to me. It might not be a huge success compared to WoW but then again nothing is.
I am still playing it and enjoying it and will continue to do so for the near future.
Last but not least in order for the game to completely go down and everyone to flee there has to be something else for everyone to go to. There is nothing else at the moment and nothing I can see in the next year that I am excited in. No game is perfect and no game ever will be perfect. Its really just about do you get enjoyment from playing or not. If you dont then obviously its time to find something different. If you do then your probably not on the boards writing about it.
Though we are resizing the team to move from a pre-launch to a post-launch size
Hmm, where did I hear that before? Yes, right, Tabula Rasa, a few months before it died.
I really did like that game and I do like WAR, so I don't hope that it will die, it shouldn't (just like TR shouldn't have, I'd rather have seen Lineage 1+2 go away, since I absolutely don't like that kind of game), still, i will be prepared for the worst, as I am always.
Whatever happens, I really think Jon Wood, even though you write many fantastic articles, you have really fueled the rumour fires with your 2 cents on this one. Sure you can have an opinion but don't underestimate the power of yours. Sometimes it is good to just report the news objectively instead of trying to fuel forum posts. The same forum fire result would have happened without the insinuation yes, but regardless, it does seem more plausible coming from you.
Dev
Good, I hope EA and Mythic goes down the tube. I bought my copy on ebay for $5...does that tell you anything?
I went back to Galaxies, the game is still adding. I feel bad for WAR it seemed to Linear.
Lol, you guys are narrow minded if you think WAR is failing or closing down. Losing 450k subscribers is alot, but did ya notice that they stated many of the subscribers were still in their 30 day trial when they released the 750k number? Name one MMO that hasnt lost a ton of subs after 3-4 months, gurantee you WoW lost alot as well, shit they lost nearly 750k when WAR came out, OMG WoW is gonna fail!!!????!! On a serious note ....I can name a few big ones off the top of my head....EQ2, SWG, Shadowbane, shall I continue?
EQ2 has a strong player base, and recovered at the end of the 1st year. SWG did the same. They were all huge hyped games and failed to deliver, therefore lost subs. The bugs were "fixed", and content was added...and wouldnt you know people came back? Same will happen with WAR.
300K subs is plenty of subs to be succesful right now, and profitable. Example...there are cell phone carriers such as Helio who had less than 200k subscribers and still made a profit, and they were a startup company....any idea how much more money it costs to run that? Leasing the towers alone for Helio was more expensive than the money EA put into WAR...let alone the minimal costs of operating it.
WAR is fine, it will be around for a long time and will continue to stabilize as the issues are fixed. Gurantee WAR is back to 750k subs by end of year. The game is great, regardless of what the haters say. It has its issues like every other new MMO.
Just thought I'd share some number I russled up in my head just now quickly. They should prove insightful to anyone who hasn't considered them.
Lets just assume that the sub is 10 USD per month (I thin I pay 8 GBP per month so I think that that is a slightly conserative esitmate)
300k subscribers at 10 USD per month = 3 million USD per month = 36 million USD per year in subscription revenue.
300 employees on a wage of 50,000 USD per year = 15 million USD per year.
50,000 USD per year is just a guess as to the average wage.
This implies that even if WAR only keeps 300k subscribers it will STILL be making a profit of 21 million USD per year.
It should be safe ;) break even point for ongoing costs at the 300 staff headcount level would be somewhere around 150k subscriptions. (Of course it needs to do better than breakeven for ongoing costs in order to recoup the sunk costs of development, but it will still operate as long as its not losing more money).
So.... start worrying about announced plans and intentions only if subscription numbers hit 150K. If that happens they'll likely just half the headcount to 150 be able to stay profitable at anything over 75k subscriptions.
Layoffs are no surpirse - the business' aim is to MAXIMISE profits.
Now someone please do me WOW's numbers and we can all weep ;)
I would put the average salary with benefits between $75,000-$100,000. Plus you have to add the costs for their data center (hardware, bandwidth etc..). Then there is business costs, such as; workspace lease, equipment, furniture etc...
I suspect they are not nearly as profitable as you think, especially if they do have 300 staff.
Thanks for the comments Kilgore. You are probably right.
In which case at $100k per employee , and allowing $6 million per year for overheads the project is about breaking even. No wonder 100 jobs had to go ;)
Seen a few posts mentioning the development costs. As these are sunk they are pretty irrelevant regarding how much longer we'll see the game around for.
.
No, I don't think people quit because they suck in PvP. Well some maybe but just a few.
The reason I don't play it is that I don't like what they did to my favorite pen and paper RPG game, they cut out all the dark horror of it, took away the backstabbing and corruption of the empire...
I would love to be able to walk Middenheims streets, to take a boat up the river Reik, to spend an evning in Brettonia with duels and drinking but this game just don't give me the same rush as the pen and paper game. I guess it is not bad for what it is but it could have been so much more.
But I think the main reason many quited was that it is still to close to Wow, and they already have a high level char or more there.
Mythic should have kept the original system of Warhammer and not made it level based. Being close to Wow isn't good, Wow already have it's fans and WAR would have been better if it was closer to the fantastic RPG and tabletop games.
So you wanted the old Warhammer Online game being developed in 2003? More sand-box and RPG-ish. Exploring, trading, career-based 'open' PVP. Perma deaths for slayers haha.
Mr. Hawking......
Blizzard has laid off Twice, In June 08 and in August 08....they are scehduled to lay off again in April. Google it.
CCP has ran a skeleton crew since launch, they also currently have 3/4 of WARs subscribers. Grab a clue before you speak.
LOL. This post made me laugh. If CCP is running a skeleton crew then how are they releasing around 2 expansions every year? And how are they releasing their BIGGEST expansion just next month with a "skeleton crew"? Also they mentioned in the alliance tourny that they have gone from around 20-40 employees(at the start of the company) to 130+ employees and have expanded internationally, opening studios in Atlanta, GA and Shanghai, china.
And from what i have found through searching, blizzard has only laid off 53 employees related to activision-blizzard itself. They have laid off 100 people from a seperate area of the company called "radical entertainment", this part of the company is only reponsible for "Scarface"
Die WAR! Die! I wanna hear you "gasp, sputter, bluhhhhhhhh..."! Make all my predictions come true because you delivered so under the expectations bar, you crapped on a cool IP, and mainly... you made me go back to wow you bastards!
isnt this the same shit they did in MCO? fired everyone and claimed the game was gonna continue before they closed it down outta nowhere? only a moron would buy a mmo from EA.
Obviously these calculations are kind of pointless because they are oversimplified. The decisions in shutting down a game are a bit more complicated than some people seem to think. It's not a case of "As long as we don't lose money we let it run".
The point at which a game becomes undesirable to run is not when it stops making profit. But when the return on the capital that is employed to keep it running gets smaller than with other options. For example whats the point in running the game when you can just fire everyone, sell off the assets, carry your money to the bank and make more.
On the other hand even if running an MMO might not be as profitable for a company than other ventures it is a steady stream of cash. This can improve the company's liquidity and might still benefit the overall business more than shutting it down.
Shutting a game down can create negative publicity at the playerbase but if it is not running profitable it will actually send a positive signal to shareholders, so will firing people so thats not really an argument for keeping anything running.
Obviously Mythic expected more players and had the servers and staff in place now that they have less subscribers some of them have to go. This does not really tell anything about how profitable their operations are running only that they are scaling down certain activities.
I bet I could think of a few more things that are important to consider but I guess you are getting my point:
Its all just wild speculation.
BTW: The development budget itself is mostly irrelevant for the profitability as the money is gone. Shutting down a game would not do much towards recovering it. However any interest for loans would have to considered.