To be honest, the dismal financial predictions related to Perfect World and Neverwinter are no surprise at all and have no real bearing on how good the game will or will not be. If I were investing in today's market I can't think of a game company I would take a risk on. They are all mediocre or poor preformers across the board.The big payout from a huge hit from a small studio you buy into cheap is a RARE thing. Not even Activision / Blizzard is worth it right now.

Originally posted by the_goldy_go

There are dozens of reviews and previews of Neverwinter out there but after some "issues" with reviews of multiple games recently a new type of review caught my attention.

Jordan Pease is an independent stock analyst who in January added Perfect World on his list of "5 Companies You Shouldn't Invest In."    Here is what he has to specifically about Neverwinter: 

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"In May, 2011 Perfect World purchased competitor developer, Cryptic Studios, and assumed control of Neverwinter, an MMORPG slated to be released in 2013. Perfect world has high hopes for the Neverwinter gaming platform, however, a large number of MMORPGs are slated to be released in 2013, many of which are more highly anticipated than Neverwinter.

 

In order for Neverwinter to be successful, a team of employees will need to dedicate themselves to marketing the game, providing excellent customer service, and continuously fixing identified bugs in gaming platforms. With a paltry company approval rating of 2.3 out 5.0, and little confidence in CEO Michael Yufeng Chi, the odds of Neverwinter succeeding are low."

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Jordan Pease isn't alone. MSN Money rating is a little more harsh.

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Perfect World Co Ltd, a micro-cap unknown style company in the consumer non-durables sector, is expected to significantly underperform the market over the next six months with very high risk.

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The Street Ratings:

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However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including deteriorating net income and a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself.

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I could go on.

Perfect World as recently as December was considered a strong buy with potential to double your investment as analysts were talking about 100%+ return on investment as the stock price was surely going to climb.

Why the change of tune? Clearly the analysts do not believe that Neverwinter is going to be successful. These are people that think about the business side of business everyday and they are less then impressed.

When I hear that multiple classes are basically waiting in the wings to get added to the game I have to wonder if Cryptic and PWE are pondering how to Monetize them rather than add them to the game at launch. How much can they charge how do they make it possible to earn them in game but still be difficult enough that 75% of people interested in them will spend $5 or $10 on them.

The Stock Analysts reviews are enough for me to be very cautious with my dollars even more cautious then my previous experience with Cryptic Games.

These analysts are looking at past performances of a company not at the game, at best it's a guess on their part which way the company will go, however you only posted what these analysts said was a poor investment, did any of theswe analysts happen to highlight other companies that would be a better investment? if they did I would be hesitant, playing down one company to then sing the praises of another is one way to lead investors to the market area these ppl want you to go.

I'm no market player but I know that these ppl have no idea what an MMO is, they probably don't even own a console. What makes a good MMO? who knows, there have been games produced that have been so shallow that they have swept over the market like a tropical storm, then there have been strong IP's from kajor players that have failed miserably. I go with my gut and my gut says Neverwinter will prove to be a game that will be hugely popular, due in part to the Foundry and ofc it's setting and the established fanbase.

 

well i also think that its free to play and that most people that played it liked it and wrote a good review helps

and lets look at the other contenders

the pro's to neverwinter

- its free

- d&d lore

- easy accessible

- action combat attracts non mmo type players

- foundry

 

- wildstar - i think this one could become very big! but then again its scifci and very wowi'sh...i think it will be successful for some time, maybe even for long but i also think neverwinter and wildstar can coexist relatively easy

- darkfall 2 - beta has been pretty bad so far, besides i dont think they share the same playerbase

- everquest next - is this even comming out in 2013, i doubt it

- teso - well - my humble opinion - a lot of people have VERY high expectations for this game, but from all that i have seen, it simply looks like any other big 0815 mmo that has come out in the recent years (such as swtor etc.)...i couldnt find anything that makes the game more special or increases its longevity over that of any other themepark game, i tihnk a lot of people will be very disappointed over that game

- final fantasy reborn - outdated...i dont think they can attract more/new players to the game, everything about it is simply outdated...

- archeage - certainly one of the bigger contenders...altough, i dunno if archeage will release in 2013 in eu/usa and i doubt it...even if so, neverwinter and archeage are very different...archeage has a very traditional (and i like to say boring as hell) combat system, but shines with all the sandbox content, whereas neverwinter rather focusses on multiplayer "dynamic" combat and doesnt care about the rest...

 

imo wildstar is the biggest name to come out this year that others should look out fore as i truly expect teso to fail horribly....

 

oh and one more thing, the devs already said that new classes and races will not cost a dime

Originally posted by Crazy_Stick
To be honest, the dismal financial predictions related to Perfect World and Neverwinter are no surprise at all and have no real bearing on how good the game will or will not be. If I were investing in today's market I can't think of a game company I would take a risk on. They are all mediocre or poor preformers across the board.The big payout from a huge hit from a small studio you buy into cheap is a RARE thing. Not even Activision / Blizzard is worth it right now.

i think people are kinda funny

they are screaming for independent developpers that are not restrained by big publishers but then again complain about their poor economic numbers...you cant have both, big companies with good backing will not take risks and small companies that do will be hit or fail...

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by Talonsin
I dont think FUN will be the issue, I think LASTING fun will be.  Just like all Craptics games, they are great to jump in the first time and spend hours customizing your toon and enjoying the first few weeks but after that...  Things get old, you level too quick and are soon looking for other games to play.  My prediction is strong player base as the game releases with most of us checking it out.  Three month later, customer base down to 25% and introduction of more monitization such as lockboxes.

 

with the foundry you have potential for almost limitless content and hundreds of hours just making your own content.. Will really depend how well the system works and is implemented

Except it needs to be quality content, then there is the issue of elitests manipulating the rating system which has already happen in STO according to some STO players that downtrodden some aspiring aurthor but since they are not part of the group they get neg reviews.

Regardless it will take a long time for some quality content to be published and Neverwtiner is a game I will not playing extensively at launch.  I'll wait a bit for the first set of class releases before seriously playing Neverwinter so the foundry content builds up.

The Foundry I don't see providing endless content.  Take GW2, a major turnoff for a large amount of people is character progression.  If Neverwinter lacks this then only the hard core D&D fans will be sticking around but even those might go back to their more freedom games where they can build persistent worlds and host DM events which is something the Foundry desperately needs if Cryptic really wants the game to be a good success.  And GW2 has TONS of content for one to do and they expand the game continuously.  I bring this up because I highly doubt that endless content of the foundry (which the quality is highly questionable) will carry the game, it needs a lot more to carry the game.

Neverwinter will be the hot game for a few months until ESO comes out then the exodus begins if it doesn't happen before that.

I don't know, a lot of these "analysts" haven't been doing to well in their analysis when it comes to gaming. PS3 out sold the 360 as it should have (Not a fanboy, PS3 just had better hardware and more titles to draw from. We are talking about a company that backed Bluray vs. a company that backed HD DvD players lol), yet analysts predicted the opposite. SWTOR tanked yet these same analysts thought of it as a WoW killer. 

 

When it comes to the gaming industry these analysts are a bit out of their element.

 

 

Originally posted by jdnyc

Why wouldn't people spend 10 bucks on a class?  They do it all the time in LoL.  

The game is free.  It's a AAA title.  Analyst don't know crap.  And it's been proven over and over and over again.

/thread.

This is correct. 

It's an aside, but if you are investing or have some sort of retirment account (401K etc) set up, please purchase index fundds only.  They always out-perform analyst hand picked funds over a substantial period of time.

People inside a company do not know how their company will do over 5 or 10 years (insider trading is basically about short/term stock price gains or falls  that are caused by companies releasing previously unknown information), analysts on the outside looking in never do.  What they do is make 10 guesses, get 6 right, and convince you that the generally know what they're talking about.  They don't point out that the guy next to him got 6 wrong - they just publcize the guy who's guesses happened to be right.

I was arguing with someone about 9 months ago abotu NCSoft.  He was of the opinion that GW2 was so good it was driving NCSoft's stock price high, and that NCSoft was just like the Apple of the gaming industry.  This guy knew a lot about GW2. 

In the last year, NCSoft's stock has fallen to about 50% of their value and Apple has lost about 20% (40% from their high) while the Dow Jones has climbed about 10%. This is not to say they're bad companies or not to buy their stock (well, Apple was horribly over priced) but all these changes are for the most part supported by analysts saying buy/sell.

The one thing we should have learned over the last 100 years in America is that the analysts don't know WTF they're talking about.

Originally posted by furbans

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by Talonsin
I dont think FUN will be the issue, I think LASTING fun will be.  Just like all Craptics games, they are great to jump in the first time and spend hours customizing your toon and enjoying the first few weeks but after that...  Things get old, you level too quick and are soon looking for other games to play.  My prediction is strong player base as the game releases with most of us checking it out.  Three month later, customer base down to 25% and introduction of more monitization such as lockboxes.

 

with the foundry you have potential for almost limitless content and hundreds of hours just making your own content.. Will really depend how well the system works and is implemented

Except it needs to be quality content, then there is the issue of elitests manipulating the rating system which has already happen in STO according to some STO players that downtrodden some aspiring aurthor but since they are not part of the group they get neg reviews.

Regardless it will take a long time for some quality content to be published and Neverwtiner is a game I will not playing extensively at launch.  I'll wait a bit for the first set of class releases before seriously playing Neverwinter so the foundry content builds up.

The Foundry I don't see providing endless content.  Take GW2, a major turnoff for a large amount of people is character progression.  If Neverwinter lacks this then only the hard core D&D fans will be sticking around but even those might go back to their more freedom games where they can build persistent worlds and host DM events which is something the Foundry desperately needs if Cryptic really wants the game to be a good success.  And GW2 has TONS of content for one to do and they expand the game continuously.  I bring this up because I highly doubt that endless content of the foundry (which the quality is highly questionable) will carry the game, it needs a lot more to carry the game.

Neverwinter will be the hot game for a few months until ESO comes out then the exodus begins if it doesn't happen before that.

i don't know all of what this game offers for progression but I think people underestimate how much a good dungeon creator in a MMO with modern graphics could intrigue people. The originally NWN and NWN2 had loads of player made content and I played that for years.. same with oblivion/skyrim majority of the most enjoyable stuff I played in those games was player created. You just need to get a big enough fan base to start making the content and you will get plenty of quality dungeons/quests to run through.. also the time it takes really depends on how well the foundry system is made and from what I have read/seen this version of their creator is supposed to be leaps and bounds better than what is offered in their previous games.. we shall see though

  Cant wait to bring this game into my F2P rotation. 

Not sure if the game will work for me or not, BUT I cannot wait to see the Forge in operation.

Graphics look pretty, gameplay vids look meh... what excites me is the prospect of a NWN style creation system and recreating my favorite dungeons.