WAR to be released...

[Mrbloodworth]

The game failed YOU, it did not fail.

[cevik]

How was it a dismal failure?  It wasn't.  Lots of people signed up, lots of people still play.  it made money.   It is only a dismal failure IN YOUR HEAD!

Because it took an IP that created a series of movies that grossed around $800 million each and reached millions and millions of fans at the absolute height of that IPs popularity and created a very niche game that barely crested 200k subscribers and has done nothing but go down since then.

You know, pretty much the definition of dismal failure.

EDIT:  yeah I typed to fast, go ahead and tell me how it proves me wrong.

[amiable]

How was it a dismal failure?  It wasn't.  Lots of people signed up, lots of people still play.  it made money.   It is only a dismal failure IN YOUR HEAD!

Because it took an IP created from a series of movies that grossed around $800 million each and reached millions and millions of fans at the absolute height of that IPs popularity and created a very niche game that barely crested 200k subscribers and has done nothing but go down since then.

You know, pretty much the definition of dismal failure.

So?  The gaming market is not the same as the movie/book market.  If you want to see a failure cascade of popular IP check out Matrix online.  Because something is not as successful as it could of been does not make it a "dismal failure." 

Dismal failure is not failing to get the job you want.  Dismal failure is failing to get the job you want and dying going on a bender, leaving you wife and dying of a heroin overdose (see auto assault).

[amiable]

EDIT:  yeah I typed to fast, go ahead and tell me how it proves me wrong.

i wouldn't do that because i know how generous you are when someone misinterprets or slightly misrepresents what some else is saying.  You're a ray of sunshine like that.

[cevik]

So?  The gaming market is not the same as the movie/book market.  If you want to see a failure cascade of popular IP check out Matrix online.  Because something is not as successful as it could of been does not make it a "dismal failure." 

SWG, MxO and LotRO all share one thing in common:  They were all failures.

[cevik]

EDIT:  yeah I typed to fast, go ahead and tell me how it proves me wrong.

i wouldn't do that because i know how generous you are when someone misinterprets or slightly misrepresents what some else is saying.  Your a ray of sunshine like that.

You changed "I think it may not be feature complete" to "it's a fact that it's not feature complete".  I'd hardly say that's a "slight misrepresentation".

[amiable]

So?  The gaming market is not the same as the movie/book market.  If you want to see a failure cascade of popular IP check out Matrix online.  Because something is not as successful as it could of been does not make it a "dismal failure." 

SWG, MxO and LotRO all share one thing in common:  They were all failures.

Again, assertions are not fact.

[cevik]

So?  The gaming market is not the same as the movie/book market.  If you want to see a failure cascade of popular IP check out Matrix online.  Because something is not as successful as it could of been does not make it a "dismal failure." 

SWG, MxO and LotRO all share one thing in common:  They were all failures.

Again, assertions are not fact.

So you have your opinion (that a failed game is not a failure, for some odd reason), and I have mine (that that game that failed, is a failure).  Why is it that your assertions are fact and mine are not?

[amiable]

EDIT:  yeah I typed to fast, go ahead and tell me how it proves me wrong.

i wouldn't do that because i know how generous you are when someone misinterprets or slightly misrepresents what some else is saying.  Your a ray of sunshine like that.

You changed "I think it may not be feature complete" to "it's a fact that it's not feature complete".  I'd hardly say that's a "slight misrepresentation".

Whatever.  

[Tarami]

I thought this board had some kind of rules against obvious trolling, but maybe I was wrong.

[cevik]

EDIT:  yeah I typed to fast, go ahead and tell me how it proves me wrong.

i wouldn't do that because i know how generous you are when someone misinterprets or slightly misrepresents what some else is saying.  Your a ray of sunshine like that.

You changed "I think it may not be feature complete" to "it's a fact that it's not feature complete".  I'd hardly say that's a "slight misrepresentation".

I fuck goats.  

I may have slightly misrepresented what you said, but it was only a slight misrepresentation, so no biggie.

[cevik]

I thought this board had some kind of rules against obvious trolling, but maybe I was wrong.

I agree, amiable and bloodworth should be banned for even remotely implying that LotRO was anything but a failure, those fucking trolls.

[amiable]

So?  The gaming market is not the same as the movie/book market.  If you want to see a failure cascade of popular IP check out Matrix online.  Because something is not as successful as it could of been does not make it a "dismal failure." 

SWG, MxO and LotRO all share one thing in common:  They were all failures.

Again, assertions are not fact.

So you have your opinion (that a failed game is not a failure, for some odd reason), and I have mine (that that game that failed, is a failure).  Why is it that your assertions are fact and mine are not?

Because I am backing up my point with the following facts (please dispute any you feel are incorrect):

1.  The game made money.
2.  no servers have been shut-down/merged (classic sign of a failed/failing game).
3.  An expansion is coming out.

The only thing you are asserting is that it SHOULD have been more successful (based on numbers you pulled out of your head because you are an expert on market share, marketing and turbines business plan).

Edit: And I don't fuck goats.  We make sweet, sweet love.

[Mrbloodworth]

I thought this board had some kind of rules against obvious trolling, but maybe I was wrong.

I agree, amiable and bloodworth should be banned for even remotely implying that LotRO was anything but a failure, those fucking trolls.

Heh, funny guy.

[cevik]

Because I am backing up my point with the following facts (please dispute any you feel are incorrect):

1.  The game made money.
2.  no servers have been shut-down/merged (classic sign of a failed/failing game).
3.  An expansion is coming out.

The only thing you are asserting is that it SHOULD have been more successful (based on numbers you pulled out of your head because you are an expert on market share, marketing and turbines business plan).

1.  No one knows if this is true or not.
2.  This may be true, but they also haven't opened any new servers (a classic sign of a game that is succeeding)
3.  SWG had expansions, lots of failed games had expansions.  This isn't a metric for success.  Hell it sounds like AoC is going to have an expansion.  Since when did expansions become a definition of success? 

[Triforcer]

ITS NOT FUN ANYMORE MOMMY MAKE THE RIDE STOP

[cevik]

ITS NOT FUN ANYMORE MOMMY MAKE THE RIDE STOP

You just reminded me of the last time I ate shrooms.

It got better before the end though.  And pretty.

[MahrinSkel]

On what are you basing your expectations?  The name recognition of LoTR from the books and movies?  The stellar performance of the LoTR video games that came before it?  You're asserting "It bombed" because it failed to meet your expectations of what an LoTR MMO could have done, but you are not saying what those were or what you're basing them on.

LoTR makes money, and for all indications will continue to do so for a long time.  There is no other meaningful standard for success right now.  Now, if what you're really saying is that you *want* it to be considered a bomb, because you didn't like it and that will confirm your sense of moral order, then that is a whole different thing.

SWG, also not technically a failed game in a business sense.  Again, people felt it underperformed what a Star Wars MMO "should" have been capable of, but it was certainly profitable.  Handsomely so, until the NGE (which is directly traceable to LucasArts and their perception of underperformance).  But it's not like every liscensed IP is golden, and those two in particular have a mixed history.  Maybe our expectations were nothing but guesses we pulled out of our ass, and making business decisions based on them is a recipe for Dilbert-scale clusterfucks?

--Dave

[cevik]

SWG, also not technically a failed game in a business sense.

How about this, when you have to come to the boards and say that a game is "not technically a failed game in a business sense", then it's pretty much a failure as an artistic creation.

Kinda like LotRO and SWG were.

EDIT:  The best part is that because LotRO way underperformed expectations and I pointed that out, I keep being accused of somehow wanting it to fail.  I guess if I point out we did shitty in Iraq, I wanted America to Lose?

[cevik]

How about this question:  If Warhammer Online peaks at 200k subscribers, will it be a success or a failure?

[Tmon]

Doesn't this release date pretty much run head on into Spore's? 

[Riggswolfe]

How about this question:  If Warhammer Online peaks at 200k subscribers, will it be a success or a failure?

This is too simplistic. What costs does it have in design, development, advertising, etc. Does it retain tose 200k subscribers for let's say, the average length of an MMO subscriber?

If those 200k are enough to offset the costs and it retains those numbers for 6 months-1 year it's a success.

[eldaec]

How about this question:  If Warhammer Online peaks at 200k subscribers, will it be a success or a failure?

Yes.

[tmp]

This isn't a metric for success.

Neither are nebulous expectations pulled out of ass.

edit: to look at it from slightly different angle, how many currently active western MMOs that's been active for over a year can claim playerbase equal or greater than that guesstimated 200k? A honest question, beside WoW and EVE i'm drawing a blank... but then i don't follow the reports closely.

[Lum]

How about this, when you have to come to the boards and say that a game is "not technically a failed game in a business sense", then it's pretty much a failure as an artistic creation.

Kinda like LotRO and SWG were.

EDIT:  The best part is that because LotRO way underperformed expectations and I pointed that out, I keep being accused of somehow wanting it to fail.  I guess if I point out we did shitty in Iraq, I wanted America to Lose?

Anything can be construed as a failure "as an artistic creation". All that it takes is for the individual viewer not to like it. And based on your posts, that's exactly what you're not saying. You're saying that "because they have a license that should print money, they should have 12 zillion subscribers. Since they don't, they have failed."

MMOs are not artistic creations. They are businesses. If LOTRO (or SWG, or Hello Kitty Online, or whatever) paid back its investors and has a decent ROI, it succeeded. LOTRO is inarguably, uncontestably, a success for Turbine. Especially following AC2 and DDO (neither of which were business successes), Turbine had to have a business success and they did. It is now allowing them to solicit new VC and fund new teams - growing the business, in other words. Which is... how a business succeeds.

Would they have been happier if they had gotten 20 million subscribers, dethroned Blizzard as kings of the castle, and had horses and carraiges cast from gold that they could then use to traipse through the cobblestones of Boston? Probably (assuming that the load didn't make the servers explode and cause a massive failure due to that). But *any* business endeavour can be sniped at from the sidelines with that logic. One could arguably say that WoW is a failure because they do not have 20 million subs in North America, despite there being considerably more than 20 million potential WoW customers. Which would also be a somewhat laughable proposition. The benchmark at the end of the day is - is the business meeting its ROI goals, allowing for growth, and paying back investment.

Now, if you didn't like it... you probably shouldn't pay for it. If you didn't like it and think that it should be a failure and everyone involved should be unemployed so that your view of its merits can be validated - you may want to get some air.

[pxib]

Novels and movies are generally lousy IP for MMOGs. They're completely different media and it's unsurprising that stories well suited for heroic fiction falls flat on their faces in crowded social clusterfucks. Players come into them expecting that they'll get to be one of the heroes they loved... instead, if they are involved in world-shaping events at all, they find out they get a walk-on part without any dialogue.

In both Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, the world-changing events are pretty much set in stone. Everyone knows how, when, and why they happen... and nobody's going to have a say in that. Either could have abandoned or escaped the understood timeline, but that would have required as much effort, and sacrificed as much fan support, as making up a setting without the pesky bullshit inherent in adapting an IP (Lucasfilm's and the Tolkein family's involvement in those projects, for example.)

The idea that getting permission to make LotRO or SWG was a good move is open to a lot of debate.

[MahrinSkel]

How about this, when you have to come to the boards and say that a game is "not technically a failed game in a business sense", then it's pretty much a failure as an artistic creation.

What would be a success in an artistic sense for an MMO?  I've been trying to work that out for 10 years, and I still don't have a good answer.

--Dave

[Triforcer]

How about this, when you have to come to the boards and say that a game is "not technically a failed game in a business sense", then it's pretty much a failure as an artistic creation.

What would be a success in an artistic sense for an MMO?  I've been trying to work that out for 10 years, and I still don't have a good answer.

--Dave

Something that everyone likes, but that doesn't cater to the lowest common denominator and isn't too popular to be unartsy. 

[Tarami]

How about this, when you have to come to the boards and say that a game is "not technically a failed game in a business sense", then it's pretty much a failure as an artistic creation.

What would be a success in an artistic sense for an MMO?  I've been trying to work that out for 10 years, and I still don't have a good answer.

--Dave

Something that everyone likes, but that doesn't cater to the lowest common denominator and isn't too popular to be unartsy. 

Jesus!

Yes, really.

[lamaros]

LOTRO was a boring piece of shit. Who the fuck cares if it 'bombed' or not? You're a fucking retard if you want to fuck this thread up with shit about ROI and whatever to try and justify the fact that a game is worth something. If you think it's worth something talk about what it's worth as a game; I could give a fuck about a game that is shit but makes money, I like games because I like to play them.

This is a gaming forum, not a gaming VC forum.

[UnSub]

How was it a dismal failure?  It wasn't.  Lots of people signed up, lots of people still play.  it made money.   It is only a dismal failure IN YOUR HEAD!

Because it took an IP that created a series of movies that grossed around $800 million each and reached millions and millions of fans at the absolute height of that IPs popularity and created a very niche game that barely crested 200k subscribers and has done nothing but go down since then.

You know, pretty much the definition of dismal failure.

EDIT:  yeah I typed to fast, go ahead and tell me how it proves me wrong.

Where do you keep getting that 200k figure from? My understanding was that LOTRO hit about 400k subs. AFAIK, Turbine have never released any sub figures, instead announcing stuff like "4 million characters have been created in LOTRO".

Is LOTRO a disappointment? Yeah, probably - I'm sure Turbine was thinking 1m+ subs. But it wasn't a bomb. It wasn't a failure in the business sense.

Also, please point out the range of artistically successful MMOs out there. You know, the ones that reached out an touched people in the heart and made them think and all that. The only one I can even think of was Seed and that lasted -3 days.

[sam, an eggplant]

LOTRO was a boring piece of shit. Who the fuck cares if it 'bombed' or not? You're a fucking retard if you want to fuck this thread up with shit about ROI and whatever to try and justify the fact that a game is worth something. If you think it's worth something talk about what it's worth as a game; I could give a fuck about a game that is shit but makes money, I like games because I like to play them.

This is a gaming forum, not a gaming VC forum.

Some of us are interested in talking about the industry in addition to the craft of game design. That doesn't necessarily make us fucking retards. If you're not interested in that aspect of discussion, simply move on instead of dismissing it and reacting like an infantile pretentious twat.

[lamaros]

Some of us are interested in talking about the industry in addition to the craft of game design. That doesn't necessarily make us fucking retards. If you're not interested in that aspect of discussion, simply move on instead of dismissing it and reacting like an infantile pretentious twat.

I'm sorry that my use of the word 'fucking' bothered you so much. I think maybe there is a profanity filter you can turn on.

MMOs are not artistic creations. They are businesses.

This, which is what I was responding to, is not a statement of interest in the industry, it is a claim that it is reaonsable to talk about games as an industry and only as industry.

LOTRO is not necessarily a good game if it is a sucessful product. It might be a good game to some, it is not to many others. There is no objective position to take here; when we talk about whether or not we think games are good we talk about our feeling for the game. To say "nah, you're wrong, it's a good game because it made money" is bullshit. You want to talk about the industry and success and whatever then fine, it's interesting, but don't try and use it to make claims about how subjectivly 'good' a game may have been.

(Also this thread was stupid and I like to get in on the stupid stuff, so I had to say something).

[Trippy]

Where do you keep getting that 200k figure from? My understanding was that LOTRO hit about 400k subs. AFAIK, Turbine have never released any sub figures, instead announcing stuff like "4 million characters have been created in LOTRO".

Is LOTRO a disappointment? Yeah, probably - I'm sure Turbine was thinking 1m+ subs. But it wasn't a bomb. It wasn't a failure in the business sense.

Also, please point out the range of artistically successful MMOs out there. You know, the ones that reached out an touched people in the heart and made them think and all that. The only one I can even think of was Seed and that lasted -3 days.

Back when I cared about this the best I could do, given all the bullshit Turbine PR, was put the subs somewhere between 200K and 350K:

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=10782.msg339155#msg339155

200K is the lower bound set by CoH/CoV. 350K is Europe sub numbers reported at that time + US box sale figures + some growth added in.

[MahrinSkel]

Except a sustained subscriber level does indicate something important about quality: That many people think it is good enough to keep paying for.  Not just buy the box based on branding and marketing, but keep shelling out month after month.  Although a creatively good game could fail on many other grounds, for it to gain and keep subscribers it must give the players something they find enjoyable.  A persistant online game is an inherently different beast, where commercial success is a pre-requisite for anything else (because if the servers are shut down, the game does not exist anymore).

--Dave