thanks was just curious if it was something that maybe we could kickstart but unlikely

Originally posted by Myrdynn

thanks was just curious if it was something that maybe we could kickstart but unlikely

 

Probably not :)

"In the month of September 2010, a new contract was announced between XL Games and Tencent to publish the game in China. This generated much attention as it was worth from $50 to $60 million USD; making it the second largest deal recorded in Korean gaming exports, behind NCSoft's deal with Shanda for Aion. Later on November 10, 2010, another contract was signed to provide exclusive publishing rights through GigaMedia to make ArcheAge available in other Chinese-speaking regions such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.^[5]"

Jake Song also left NCSoft to create XLGames so I doubt NCSoft would publish the game in NA/EU. o(

Originally posted by waynejr2

Sure, UO did everything right.  People, don't let this guy blow smoke up your ...  UO at it's peak didn't have to complete with a hundred mmorpgs.

Yeap. And and you didnt have to pay nowadays 600$/month like back then without internet flatrate. And not 10 Millions of people playing games in and over the internet. All that is true, other times, other circumstances. And i never claimed UO was faultless, you can improve on everything, and nothing is perfect.

BUT, UO did a lot of things right, and a lot of those things have not done for a long time. And, my post was not about good or bad MMO designs, it was about Eastern and Western design, and that ArcheAge could be successful in the West, because they follow a design paradigm of an old Western Game. Thats it. And yes.. hundreds of quality mmos, i just ask myself why i didnt enjoyed one of them in the last five years. Well, maybe its just me, maybe not. ;)

Edit: And i didnt enjoy one Eastern MMO. You could even call me an Asian MMO hater. I just hate grinding, and those games were mostly about grinding, extensive grinding. But nevertheless i am interested in ArcheAge, why could it be?

When you know that XLgames sold the publishing rights to the chinese for a record 50 million dollars, you have a better understanding of why there isn't a western publisher yet.

Western publishers are too broke for this one or just don't see it as a viable investment, given the current low popularity of both korean games and sandbox games in the west.

What's more likely to happen is XLgames will publish it themselves in NA/EU, they already have a branch in the US so it's totally possible..

Originally posted by Charas

When you know that XLgames sold the publishing rights to the chinese for a record 50 million dollars, you have a better understanding of why there isn't a western publisher yet.

Western publishers are too broke for this one or just don't see it as a viable investment, given the current low popularity of both korean games and sandbox games in the west.

What's more likely to happen is XLgames will publish it themselves in NA/EU, they already have a branch in the US so it's totally possible..

 

Self-publish - yes I see it as a real possibility - though I would not expect it happen before 2013 or even early 2014. 

XL Games is still fresh company - AA their first title and they still have to finish game then release it , then it has to gain good enough position in Asia and then they will have enough funds + manforce to do western release.

Still considering that it is already 4/2012 and there is propably still CBT5 + 1-2 open betas ahead of AA release in Korea (so like 4-5 months still till release?) , late 2013 - early 2014 does not sound that late.

It will come to NA. Many games have been released in other countries even long after it's native release. What sucks the most about that is that they tend to be several patches behind the original due to translation and adaptations to the local marketing model.

Originally posted by GoldenArrow

Originally posted by Kuro1n

We don't even know if it has a publisher or not, it might have that just not public yet.

Well if there was one I'm quite sure they'd spill the beans asap. People will start saving money for the extra-special-hardwoodbox-collectors-edition-with-ship-model-included the very moment it has a publisher.

Only a bad publisher would do this, the gaming industry is just another industry and they will 'spill the beans' when it fits them best. Which is probably not 'asap'.

Originally posted by fenistil

Originally posted by Charas

When you know that XLgames sold the publishing rights to the chinese for a record 50 million dollars, you have a better understanding of why there isn't a western publisher yet.

Western publishers are too broke for this one or just don't see it as a viable investment, given the current low popularity of both korean games and sandbox games in the west.

What's more likely to happen is XLgames will publish it themselves in NA/EU, they already have a branch in the US so it's totally possible..

 

Self-publish - yes I see it as a real possibility - though I would not expect it happen before 2013 or even early 2014. 

XL Games is still fresh company - AA their first title and they still have to finish game then release it , then it has to gain good enough position in Asia and then they will have enough funds + manforce to do western release.

Still considering that it is already 4/2012 and there is propably still CBT5 + 1-2 open betas ahead of AA release in Korea (so like 4-5 months still till release?) , late 2013 - early 2014 does not sound that late.

thats too late :(

Originally posted by woza

While I agree that Asian markets are certainly viable in their own right, for people to start writing off the NA market as insignificant based on population is pretty dense.

  When you look at the Asian market there are language issues all within the one zone.  Not everyone in asia speeks korean, or mandarin.  So the work that needs to be done to bring the game to NA has to basically be done for every country in the asian zone.

  Converting the game to English however gets the game 90% ready for launch for practically 1/2 the world, and not only that, the affluent half where a lot more people have the disposable income to buy the game.  An English version works in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe and half of Eastern Europe and some of South Africa.

  No, the relevance of the market is not the question, simply whether the market wants AA is the bigger question and what publishers are probably asking themselves right now.

Not to mention most of Asia speaks English now (and very well).  The Internet pretty much solitifed English as the "Worlds Langague".  I agree game should of been made in English First

Originally posted by grimfall

Not to mention MMO's don't fail or succeed based on bugs, or even a smooth launch.  Anarchy Online is all the proof you ever need to disprove that notion.

That was a different time...  I was having loads of fun with Vanguard at launch despite the bugs, and couldn't understand problems people were having with AoC at launch since it seemed fine to me.  And people even complained about SWTOR launch.  I am totally a SWTOR hater, but it's launch went just fine and I never had problems with bugs in that crappy game.

Originally posted by Thorbrand

You won't hear anything about a NA release or publisher until MMORPG.com wants a boost in their front page hype-o-meter.

Fixed. 

Originally posted by Apraxis

Originally posted by waynejr2

Sure, UO did everything right.  People, don't let this guy blow smoke up your ...  UO at it's peak didn't have to complete with a hundred mmorpgs.

Yeap. And and you didnt have to pay nowadays 600$/month like back then without internet flatrate. And not 10 Millions of people playing games in and over the internet. All that is true, other times, other circumstances. And i never claimed UO was faultless, you can improve on everything, and nothing is perfect.

BUT, UO did a lot of things right, and a lot of those things have not done for a long time. And, my post was not about good or bad MMO designs, it was about Eastern and Western design, and that ArcheAge could be successful in the West, because they follow a design paradigm of an old Western Game. Thats it. And yes.. hundreds of quality mmos, i just ask myself why i didnt enjoyed one of them in the last five years. Well, maybe its just me, maybe not. ;)

Edit: And i didnt enjoy one Eastern MMO. You could even call me an Asian MMO hater. I just hate grinding, and those games were mostly about grinding, extensive grinding. But nevertheless i am interested in ArcheAge, why could it be?

I agree with you 100%. The original UO was the best mmo to date - look through the forums these days: all you see is people asking for this game again. Even people that don't know what it is are describing it almost to the 'T' in the LFGame section. Look at all the people begging for a "sandbox" mmo. Beyond that, the fact of the matter is and I'm saying this as nicely as possible, most of the posts I've seen on here about the 'markets' are anecdotal at best. I'm no expert on the publishing of video games but I LOVE the idea of mmo's - even if they all have blown since the original UO - and I am finishing my second degree in finance (so I spend most of my time studying markets worldwide covering many different topics within them) and when it comes to profit margin for video game publishers there is really only one market that is considered the staple: the US market. After that is the Euro zone and then Asia. 

The fact is until China, Thailand, Taiwan, and other countries in that area manage to convert their own economies to a consumption driven growth model - as an aside, the rest of the world better hope they don't successfully pull this off or it's going to start costing a lot more for your t-shirts - the major money for these companies is still coming from the US/Eurozone. In fact, it wouldn't really surprise me to find out that if Tencent (I believe that is the Chinese publisher) believes the game will be a major success that they will publish in the US and anywhere else they can. 

As I said above: I have not studied the international video game market closely but it doesn't take long on google to find out what the biggest market for video games is currently. Of course, their idea might be to focus on the fastest growing economies on Earth. I don't think that is a bad plan but in the grand scheme of things I would hardly say the finance people behind these companies (assuming they are going for a AAA title) are going to blatantly disregard what is (right now) the biggest market for these games. Then again, not everyone is looking to build the next international blockbuster hit so we may never see it outside Asian markets. They may just want to cater to that side of the globe and that is it - there is nothing wrong with that if they believe that fits more with their design for the game and the direction they want to go with their company.

Anyway, I'm just rambling a long at this point because I'm exhausted from studying and I'm sure the nonlinear logic of the above post is probably difficult to follow at best. Just some thoughts on the thread because it is one I am particularly interested in because I /really/ would like to play Archeage SOON.

Originally posted by Sourajit

Originally posted by salenger

I have been following this game for two years and there has been no information at all, in  regards to the north american release date..Im begining to wonder if AA will turn into one of these titles that will get release in Asia, and 2-3 years later we see a English NA version of the game.  It is annoying that we on a daily basis see screens from the Beta but still years after it was announced for an NA version have heard very little about its release.  2012 is the asian release and news on NA or opinions on when we could see it?

I have a feeling that if Arche Age doesnt hit the NA market before q2/3 2013 then its bound to fail with the amount of sandbox games that are due out within the next 1-2 years.

Heres to hoping we get some information on the NA version sooner than later.

 

It will not fail.

The asian market and it's population is a better mmo business land than only NA. I myself am from India and the amount of players switching to mmo these days is very high. If you google the population of India alone you will find a mere 10% of one of this asian country is a few times of entire NA.

They are actually making a smart move of making a good game release where the player base is ever growing and increasing  and in course of time will over take NA by leaps and bounds. 

If I am into selling something, it is better to sale where there are lot of buyers than sell where the number of potential customers are limited in number.

Ummmm.not sure where you get your numbers from sir but America alone has over 300m people.  Mexico has 115m.  North America has 25% of the people of Asia.  10% of Indias population would be 122m.  Hardly the "few times of the entire NA" BS you spouted.  Trust me, you can keep all the people for all I care.

Originally posted by Letsinod

Originally posted by Sourajit

Originally posted by salenger

I have been following this game for two years and there has been no information at all, in  regards to the north american release date..Im begining to wonder if AA will turn into one of these titles that will get release in Asia, and 2-3 years later we see a English NA version of the game.  It is annoying that we on a daily basis see screens from the Beta but still years after it was announced for an NA version have heard very little about its release.  2012 is the asian release and news on NA or opinions on when we could see it?

I have a feeling that if Arche Age doesnt hit the NA market before q2/3 2013 then its bound to fail with the amount of sandbox games that are due out within the next 1-2 years.

Heres to hoping we get some information on the NA version sooner than later.

 

It will not fail.

The asian market and it's population is a better mmo business land than only NA. I myself am from India and the amount of players switching to mmo these days is very high. If you google the population of India alone you will find a mere 10% of one of this asian country is a few times of entire NA.

They are actually making a smart move of making a good game release where the player base is ever growing and increasing  and in course of time will over take NA by leaps and bounds. 

If I am into selling something, it is better to sale where there are lot of buyers than sell where the number of potential customers are limited in number.

Ummmm.not sure where you get your numbers from sir but America alone has over 300m people.  Mexico has 115m.  North America has 25% of the people of Asia.  10% of Indias population would be 122m.  Hardly the "few times of the entire NA" BS you spouted.  Trust me, you can keep all the people for all I care.

I am wrong there.

I wanted to mention the growing number of new gamers in the mmo genre.

Originally posted by William12

Name ONE game that worked in NA that was released in the east first ?

Final Fantasy XI.