LOTRO TAXI to victory lasted two weeks

[HaemishM]

Moreover, if all those games are so successful and making money, including SWG, Vanguard, DDO and Auto Assault, then this would REALLY be the goose with golden eggs. By what you write EVERYTHING is successful and nothing ever fails. Neverending streams of money, successful, competent people who do everything at best. No one ever lose his job. It's all sunny with rainbows all over.

Learn2Read.

SWG was not a failure, it just sucked as a game. But it made money. It must still be making money, because no one has closed it down yet. Failed MMOG's get closed down.

Success for an MMOG is making a profit. Because it's, you know, a business. It may not be much of a profit, it may not be as much as the developer wanted (SWG), but if it makes a profit or breaks even, it gets to continue to live. Fuck, HORIZONS is still living, and it's a failure as a game and you'd think a business. But it still lives, so its making someone somewhere money. Why do you think there can be only one successful MMOG and everything that isn't #1 is a failure? There is more than 1 brand of toilet paper, more than 1 brand of hot sauce. There are more TV shows than the #1 TV show, more than one TV network than the #1.

The days of the One, True MMOG for all are over.

[HRose]

Failed MMOG's get closed down.

Success for an MMOG is making a profit. Because it's, you know, a business. It may not be much of a profit, it may not be as much as the developer wanted (SWG), but if it makes a profit or breaks even, it gets to continue to live. Fuck, HORIZONS is still living, and it's a failure as a game and you'd think a business. But it still lives, so its making someone somewhere money.

It seems that once the ball is rolling it's still better to keep it moving than stop. The *live* service may not continue to lose money but it doesn't mean that money wasn't lost. Somewhere money was lost or both Matrix and Vanguard wouldn't get sold.

We know that Auto Assault lost a lot of money. Still it runs. So things, under the hood, are probably a little more complex than this superficial level.

What I think is that it's not exactly easy to make a MMO that makes a profit. When instead in your words basically all MMOs are successes. Go make a game in your basement because you'll likely succeed, we know where that mantra lead and how it is close to reality. It would be an industry where no one loses nor risks and again I don't think this utopia corresponds to reality. I think instead this is a very hard industry where we had a lot of failures, where people lost jobs, money and all the rest. Pretty much like in EVERY other industry where the risk is high.

It was said that LOTRO HAS TO succeed or it would became really, really hard to find founds again to make a MMO.

Why do you think there can be only one successful MMOG and everything that isn't #1 is a failure?

I haven't said this.

What I wrote before is essentially because I think it's curious when you figure out that Eve may be the 2nd MMO in our market. Think about suggesting a new player a game. There's WoW, then there's EQ2 that is basically the same. And a list of titles I'm sure you wouldn't recommend. For how big is this genre we don't really have outstanding, representing titles. We don't have examples of excellence, just a pool of general mediocrity. In other genres there are more relevant voices and good examples.

Again, that was a personal consideration. I wasn't implying that other MMO don't exist, just a smaller niche in the niche.

There is more than 1 brand of toilet paper, more than 1 brand of hot sauce. There are more TV shows than the #1 TV show, more than one TV network than the #1.

The days of the One, True MMOG for all are over.

Healthy, real competition assumes that there's a small gap between #1 and all the rest, though. Even an alternation.

[Chimpy]

Blizzard's numbers really need to be ignored when comparing MMOs.

It is an anomoly, just like Gone With the Wind was an anomoly, just like The Moustrap is an anomoly in the London theatre.

If MMOs in general were so hard to make money with, then no company that had previously made an MMO (especially ones you consider a failure because they only have xyz subscribers) would be making more of them. It is a niche market that has a huge upside as far as continued revenue stream is concerned. Constant revenue, even at a meager 1.5million a month (100k subscribers) is still a good chunk of change.

[Murgos]

We know that Auto Assault lost a lot of money.

No, we don't.

[Righ]

Think about suggesting a new player a game. There's WoW, then there's EQ2 that is basically the same. And a list of titles I'm sure you wouldn't recommend. For how big is this genre we don't really have outstanding, representing titles. We don't have examples of excellence, just a pool of general mediocrity. In other genres there are more relevant voices and good examples.

That makes no sense, because you are describing an MMORPG-player archetype that simultaneously has yet to play their first game and who is as bored with playing derivative examples of the genre as jaded gamers who have been playing these games for years. Thankfully for WoW, EQ2, LotRO and other ultimately derivative games, that player does not exist. People for whom LotRO is their first MMORPG do not typically play for two weeks and then quit in disgust because "its just another fucking Diku clone" or because "its similar to WoW but not as well produced". They do not have those frameworks for comparison.

WoW is well produced, it has a skillfully plagiarized theme, entertaining humorous touches, and a huge community supporting it. The huge numbers of people playing it aren't doing so simply because its the best MMORPG - most WoW players had not played MMORPGs before - they came because they played Blizzard games. It represents a victory of branding over a very small segment of the video games industry. Games that are similar but which are better executed won't necessarily usurp the market position of WoW, but that doesn't mean that they cannot attract newcomers, and satisfy their online gaming desires well.

[Venkman]

You read whatever you like in what I write, but surely it isn't what I meant.

Good then. You aren't losing your mind :)

Subs-numbers matter, but not in the sense that many use them nor how they're shown on MMOGcharts. The exampe I always use is Eve and SWG. Numbers that CCP would love to have were not enough for SOE to stay the course. This speaks to the business needs of each company more than any comparison of straight subscriptions ever could.

If a game is still live, it's successful enough. No, it's not going to change the world. No, it won't spawn iterations. I lament the fact that great concepts die because they are tied to games deemed "niche" or "a failure". But we can't call an outright failure game that a business entity still thinks is worth keeping open. All we can say is that it didn't achieve its potential, or didn't achieve expectations. And that is a strong point as well. It just doesn't mean "failure" because it's still got people paying to play it.

So while you may think a game is a failure when the live support team is reduced or the ongoing budget is halved, I see a game that still has a live support team and still has an ongoing budget at all.

This is the reason why very few MMORPGs have closed. This, to me, is the much more important brass ring this genre has to grab. Everyone wants to talk WoW, or more modestly, FFXI. But those are abberations, successful due to variables specific to that IP, technology and team. I'd rather have people consider DAoC, UO, AC1, games that were not niche at their height, considerably niche now when compared to the whole, but still there at all, long since having paid for themselves thrice or more, still being enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people, still worth paying attention to for what they do.

Basically, it's what you said at the top of page 6: "It seems that once the ball is rolling it's still better to keep it moving than stop." It is. This is truth.

New games will always build upon the old if done right. They will cannabalize the genre and add new players to it. WoW is the first game I recommend to most people I know. But I also know some folks who just wouldn't fit there, so have recommended other games. There's a reason I keep using Club Penguin. This is awesome for first-timers, because it's so low-impact. I've recommended Eve to real people. Heck, I recommended Lineage 2 to real people, and three of them have done nothing but for two solid years.

We know who to talk to for all things MMOG. They do not. So if you put yourself out there with them where they are, you can ensure they don't think this whole this is DIKU.

Doing that helps put the subs-numbers in perspective.

[d4rkj3di]

We know that Auto Assault lost a lot of money.

No, we don't.

Google auto assault ncsoft loss. Yes, we do. Unless 13.1 million dollars isn't a lot of money. The game only sold 17,000 copies worldwide.

[Murgos]

We know that Auto Assault lost a lot of money.

No, we don't.

Google auto assault ncsoft loss. Yes, we do. Unless 13.1 million dollars isn't a lot of money. The game only sold 17,000 copies worldwide.

No, you know what Auto Assault did last year.  You have no clue where it's at right now financially.

edit:  Just because the game didn't do WoW numbers does not mean it won't eventually have been a money making investment.  You people seem to think that these things aren't businesses that grow over time.  There is a reason it's almost impossible to kill an MMO and that's because they really do make money even if some of them are much slower at it than others.

AA has a live team, it gets patches and new content.  It has people playing it and paying for it.  A little effort and polish and it could continue to grow just as Eve did.  They probably only have to hit 20,000 subscribers for a couple of years to show a profit.

[d4rkj3di]

No, you know what Auto Assault did last year.  You have no clue where it's at right now financially.

It sure hasn't made back 13.1 million dollars. It hasn't gained enough new players to warrant opening a second server after merging into just one. It's no longer mentioned in any official NCsoft capacity at all. It's not doing well.

The original statement is still valid. The game lost a lot of money. The game hasn't even begun to make 10% of that amount back. The statement wasn't "The game is currently losing money". It may be operating in the black. But it's going to take a lot longer than 6 months of operating to dig itself out of that hole.

[Margalis]

Hrose is basically right. Leaving the servers on is not an indication of profitability.

Servers still running means that the game is making net revenue in that month only. It says nothing about overall profitability. Running a MMORPG is not costly at all, the cost is in the initial development. There is almost no reason to turn a MMORPG off once it is on.

[Hoax]

Yeah usually I want to stick up for him though, this time I just dont get the angle.  Who fucking cares about LOTRO enough to start a thread bashing it?  Fuck'n A.  Lets post videos of throwing paraplegics in the pool on youtube instead or something.

*missing word found, more news at 11am*

[Righ]

Running a MMORPG is not costly at all, the cost is in the initial development.

Hire David Bowman and then try saying that.

[Falconeer]

You made me hungry for silly shooting cars. I'm re-downloading Auto Assault 14 days trial right now.

[Falconeer]

1 ) Tomb Raider: Anniversary
2 ) Prey
3 ) The Sims 2
4 ) The Sims 2: H&M Fashion Stuff
5 ) Football Manager 2007
6 ) World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (Expansion Pack)
7 ) World Of Warcraft
8 ) Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars Kane Edition (DVD)

1 COMMAND & CONQUER 3: TIBERIUM WARS
2     FOOTBALL MANAGER 2007
3     WORLD OF WARCRAFT: THE BURNING CRUSADE
4     LOTR ONLINE: SHADOWS OF ANGMAR
5     THE SIMS 2: SEASONS
6     THE SIMS 2
...
11     GUILD WARS: NIGHTFALL

Derail.

Fact: Football Manager got released in November 2006 and it's still going stronger than Burning Crusade (in Europe).

Now what the fuck are the Collyers thinking?
They already earned a long time ago a (still valid) license to print money with Championship (now Football) Manager, but they are missing the chance to get the license to print money WITH THEIR FACES ON IT if they don't develop ChampMan the MMO soon.

[DraconianOne]

Derail.

Fact: Football Manager got released in November 2006 and it's still going stronger than Burning Crusade (in Europe).

Now what the fuck are the Collyers thinking?
They already earned a long time ago a (still valid) license to print money with Championship (now Football) Manager, but they are missing the chance to get the license to print money WITH THEIR FACES ON IT if they don't develop ChampMan the MMO soon.

Football Manager Live announced at end of April.  Official site here  And just because original ideas are always had by more than one person, Football Superstars has also been announced.

Keep up! 

[Falconeer]

Well.

Holy.

[Venkman]

Hrose is basically right. Leaving the servers on is not an indication of profitability.

I can't speak for anyone else, but when I say "successful enough" it's not just measuring profitability. You can't just look at that number in this industry because if the industry did, there'd be no industry. There'd not be an Xbox 360. There'd not be a PS3 :)

Basically, "success" is "achieving business interests". That could include profitability on that one specific effort, but sometimes it does not. SOE is a great example. We can rant against the inequities of any specific title, and they could only be internally interested in the aggregate of folks they convert to the All Access Pass. They maybe know the average All Access Pass player is not going to be banging on the client and server backend of more than one, maybe two, MMORPGs a week. This could be very high margin for them, the reason they take almost any MMO off the street. Their per-unit sales are less important than their game-specific accounts than their All Access Pass accounts. If that's the case, MxO is successful.

Servers still running means that the game is making net revenue in that month only. It says nothing about overall profitability. Running a MMORPG is not costly at all, the cost is in the initial development. There is almost no reason to turn a MMORPG off once it is on.

Even keeping an MMOG that nevers get new content running is costly. Bandwidth, hardware, salaries, game masters, CSR. Then add in the fact that all MMOGs do get new content, so add in creative needs, project management/production. Unless you're talking about a single server managed by an intern on a game that never changes, the cost of keeping an MMORPG alive after launch is absolutely going to exceed the cost of making it in the first place down the road. When that tipping point is looming is when companies decide whether to keep going or not.

All that are still going are doing so because it is successful enough in achieving business interests measured, laterally, just as the costs for keeping an MMOG going are.

[Slayerik]

WoW is well produced, it has a skillfully plagiarized theme, entertaining humorous touches, and a huge community supporting it. The huge numbers of people playing it aren't doing so simply because its the best MMORPG - most WoW players had not played MMORPGs before - they came because they played Blizzard games.

The huge numbers of players in WoW is because it IS the best MMORPG out. Add to the fact that there is Blizzard's name to get initial business and a ton of word of mouth from there. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but my guess is sold well at launch and steadily doubled numbers over time. Then every bitch and his brother started talking about how good the 'crack' is, got em to try it once, and hooked yet another sub for Blizzard. I know I personally introduced around 10 people to the genre and game. And many of those people got there spouses and co-workers playing, many of which never heard of Blizzard.

I tried the same type of thing with SWG (before I realized it was crap) and guess what? The retention wasn't there. So my point is, they may have came because of the blizzard name (or at least tried it because of it) but they stayed because it is the best MMO out, and their friends are there.

[Riggswolfe]

The huge numbers of players in WoW is because it IS the best MMORPG out. Add to the fact that there is Blizzard's name to get initial business and a ton of word of mouth from there. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but my guess is sold well at launch and steadily doubled numbers over time. Then every bitch and his brother started talking about how good the 'crack' is, got em to try it once, and hooked yet another sub for Blizzard. I know I personally introduced around 10 people to the genre and game. And many of those people got there spouses and co-workers playing, many of which never heard of Blizzard.

Same thing happened with me. I had a friend who never played MMOs who started spending weekends at my house during open beta to play WOW on my machine. Every person in my circle of friends except one married couple played WOW at some point.

[Vinadil]

Yep... funny to me how people try to equate WoW success (in the US) with Diablo/Starcraft/Warcraft.  Initial sales maybe... 2 years later?  Nope, there has to be something else in the game keeping people there.  Honestly I could find myself still playing that game... which is just sad as there as SO many things I DON'T like about it.  But, the things I DO like are really quite enjoyable and not reproduced in any other game on the market.

[Riggswolfe]

Yep... funny to me how people try to equate WoW success (in the US) with Diablo/Starcraft/Warcraft.  Initial sales maybe... 2 years later?  Nope, there has to be something else in the game keeping people there.  Honestly I could find myself still playing that game... which is just sad as there as SO many things I DON'T like about it.  But, the things I DO like are really quite enjoyable and not reproduced in any other game on the market.

An interesting sidenote about my group of friends who played WOW. My friends who played WOW never played a Blizzard RTS. 2 of them played Diablo 2. My hardcore Blizzard rts friends, the married couple, didn't play WOW.

I thought it was kind of funny to be honest. The rest of us knew very little about the gameworld when we first started WOW.

[Righ]

LOL, fanbois. You'd think I put WoW down or something. Lern2read. People aren't playing the game simply because its the best MMORPG. Though honestly, I'd leave it up to the individual to determine whether it is the best, since that's pretty subjective. However, the numbers certainly suggest that people value production, er "polish" and/or following the crowd.

[Chimpy]

LOL, fanbois. You'd think I put WoW down or something. Lern2read. People aren't playing the game simply because its the best MMORPG. Though honestly, I'd leave it up to the individual to determine whether it is the best, since that's pretty subjective. However, the numbers certainly suggest that people value production, er "polish" and/or following the crowd.

A lot of people I know who still play wow (and mirror the reasons I toy with playing again) play almost entirely for the social interaction. It is like an irc channel with other things to do at the same time.

Plus I think it is using subliminal messages to keep people hooked 

[Righ]

Thats typical of all MMOGs - people form bonds in the games and retain subscriptions in order to maintain the 'chat network'. People like to chat - even while driving cars in busy traffic. Of course, it does help if you have many servers of a couple of thousand people logged on at any given time rather than a handful of empty servers. But its a good argument for the single world model that EVE uses.

[Signe]

WoW is hardly the BEST MMORPG and you people all have crappy friends.

[Trippy]

Interview
In just a little over a month, the game has become quite a success, securing its place as the second largest western MMO operating today. Not bad for a so called WoW clone eh?

Unless they can show me where that information came from I'm assuming Games Radar just made that up. I.e. that's not a quote from Turbine.

Okay it's sort of quote from Turbine. This is what Jay Anderson had to say in the Slashdot interview (see this topic here):

We're probably now the second-largest MMORPG operating that was built in the US right now, you know, built in North America/Europe.

I assuming he's talking about subscription-based MMORPGs -- i.e. I doubt he's claming LOTRO is bigger than something like RuneScape. So basically he's guessing that LOTRO is larger than EQ and since SOE is now totally tight-lipped about subscription numbers it's going to have to stay a guess for presumably quite some time.

[Morat20]

WoW is hardly the BEST MMORPG and you people all have crappy friends.

I swear, I'm getting a shirt made that says "Your favorite MMORPG sucks, newb.".

God I love The Onion.

[WindupAtheist]

The best MMORPG is UO!  Rawrghrawrh!

/foam

Just getting it out of my system.

Are all these games just kind of running together in anyone else's head, or is it just me?  World of Lord of the Warhammer Ringscraft.  Whatever.  The only thing that even has a distinct outline on my radar is Conan.

[Falconeer]

I swear, I'm getting a shirt made that says "Your favorite MMORPG sucks, newb.".

I so want that shirt. Please make it real. I want it I want it I want it.

[HRose]

Just to add to the pointless guesswork I've seen that SirBruce wannabe site with hypothetical subs numbers. Nothing reliable but his numbers actually look more believable than SirBruce. Which doesn't make them any more true, but they still seem convincing.

In particular he gives detailed SOE numbers that look more believable than all they officially released.

Anyway, it's interesting to notice that in the small pack basically every title is tanking (basically all of them have fallen below 20k and most of them below 10k). If that's true it means that the market is so stuck that what isn't in the leading pack just finishes to get cannibalized. Speaking about overall market growth of the genre.

It's quite interesting because there was this common claim that every big release also brings new players to old titles. Well, it seems exactly the opposite.

The other interesting observation is that there is NOTHING western-based between the 180k of EQ2 and the 8.5M of WoW. This means that the single titles have ALL lost a massive number of players without exceptions. And what I wrote earlier on the thread may be real: Eve_Online current numbers may make it on par with EQ2 and the fucking second biggest MMO in the west.

Eve-Online. The game believed to be the niche in the niche. The spreadsheet game. The impossibly high learning curve and slow, brained gameplay.

So, as I wrote before, the western industry hasn't been able in years to put SOMETHING, something just passable that can sit at least a little higher. But not just that... Even something that goes at least at half of EverQuest. EQ had solid 400k+, DAoC solid 250k+. The point isn't that those game are now old and have already been replaced. The problem is that there's this BLACK HOLE right there.

Not only WoW grows. But all other competitors are losing subs quite consistently and nothing comes to replace them. The gap increases.

DAoC and UO are competing to who has less subs. DAoC fell from its standard 250k to 70k or so and the number looks reasonable and even conservative if you look at the live stats of their servers.

The SOE's numbers as they are given in the charts:

- EQ 140k
- EQ2 180k (surpass!)
- SWG 50k
- Vanguard 40k

Sum all of SOE and maybe you go close to what EQ had.

[Oban]

Wow, those charts are really hard to read.  For example, the headings of 50k-150k would imply a chart that goes from 50k-150k but that is apparently not the case.

Don't even get me started on the colour scheme...

[CmdrSlack]

IT'S A TRAP!

So you're saying that there is some sort of MMO subscription singularity that sucks in subscribers, who are then unable to escape, and are eventually crushed into tiny bits or spit out into an alternate MMO universe where things are the opposite of here?

Completely overlooking the fact that you're using some other random guesser's MMO Chart (as opposed to Bruce's random guesses) site as a reference, you're still just talking out of your ass. Some games lose subs.  Maybe WoW gains them. Maybe those people stop playing MMOs. You don't have to have absolute conservation of "matter" when it comes to sub numbers. At the end of the day, besides corporate bean counters, who really CARES about subscription numbers?

The industry is not going to ZOMG SUDDENLY lose all of its potential to get more money to make more games. It's not. All of your handwaving won't change that. If anything, a focus on sub numbers only serves to make shittier games in an attempt to "beat WoW."

[Venkman]

You're also overlooking two other things about MMOGChart/Data/Guesswork+PressRelease+claimed-insider-knowledge:

• There is no business justification for releasing numbers. The industry has learned. The only people who compare these numbers are self important ranters who either want to be seen as aligning themselves with the leader/underdog, are trying to pull some VC funding from niave sources*, or who are trying to make some point about there being some fundamental definition of "fun". None of this benefits the folks who are the source of these numbers.
• These numbers are too Western focused to matter. A nice historical snapshot of the niave days of everyone learning together, but not indicative of how one can make money in this space. Even that "business model" chart is far too incomplete to be of any use to anyone who wants to look deeper than a nice pie chart.

Feel free to interpret, but the source is almost irrelevant. Gone are those days Hrose. The platform, in its entire breadth, is simply too broad to be measured in aggregate. And anybody who's entering this space isn't measuring it that way anymore. There's no reason to because the needs of every business is different.

* And venture capitalists are no longer niave.

[Soln]

* And venture capitalists are no longer niave.

I can honestly say from the ones I've met so far and tried working with that VC's now act as banks, and Angels act as VC's.  If anything, that's what's changed since 1999.


As for LotRO... I played it hard for a bit, but haven't been back or played any MMO for awhile.  One thing that did stand out for me from any other MMO is that a good number of people seem happy to never leave the Shire.  They get to 13-14 and reroll.  I wonder if Turbine increased the level cap somehow with more instanced quests for Shire-centric stuff what would happen.  They still have to open the South Downs so we'll see maybe.  The Shire IMO is really well designed, more than so than any other newbie zone in an MMO I've seen.

[Khaldun]

On profitability, two things to remember. First is that if you're making more revenue in a month from subs than you're paying out, it may be worth keeping the servers on--but some games may never reach a net profit even with the servers on, because the real issue is the initial investment it cost to make the game. If you're $5 million in the hole before the game ever goes live, make 200,000 in sales of boxes  and you net  $25,000/month after live, you've got a while to go before net profit. But if you're a small company, it might be worth it to do so just to get back to even. For a big company, you really don't want to have such a weak payoff, and you may choose to just swallow the loss (or very small net profit) rather than run a whole operation just to get a trickle of revenue.

Second, the culture industry is a weird place in these terms, with accounting practices that are often designed to conceal revenue and profit flows plus extremely complex parcelings out of revenue. Games may be a little simpler, but particularly if we're talking a licensed property, I'm sure there's some real intricacies involved. There are films where even with public filings of information, it's not entirely clear whether they made net profits, or who got paid off out of the revenue.