(Almost) Pure Speculation -- Fallout MMOG

[Endie]

...they don't even have a programming team to my knowledge.

I'll pry the tin-foil hat back up off my face for long enough to say that Bioware do.  But I admit that , being Euro, I don't know what that SEC filing was for (though it seems to be H2 '06?): was it part of an invitation to tender, or part of a presentation to investors?  It looks terribly, terrtibly amateurish in production quality, btw: like it was done inhouse by a firm of two blokes :)

[Miasma]

It's supposed to be a slide show for prospective investors, it does look really awful, kids in grade school could come up with a better presentation.  Then there are all the omitted facts, dubious sources of information and unattributed statements.  If someone does invest I hope their first order of business is to demand that who ever is running the show now gets replaced.  I guess there was also an official press release a few weeks ago?

[Strazos]

I'm wondering how Interplay makes any money at all.

[HaemishM]

I see they used Bruce's chart....

I'd weep for the MMOG medium, but my tears would just serve as lubricant for the next time it wanted to skullfuck me.

[Threash]

Its not like theres any other charts and the more it gets used the more validation it gets.  Using numbers somebody else made up is more convincing than making them up yourself.

[UnSub]

Those are some interesting revenue assumptions at the end there.

Predicting 1m box sales? A player base of around 670 000 players ($160m per year/12/$20 per month)? And those charts are the clearest form of:

1) Build Fallout MMOG
2) ...
3) Profit!

I think I've ever seen.

Why, I'd be a fool NOT to invest!

 - As for SirBruce's chart: it's a convenient source of publically available numbers.

[Der Helm]

I'd weep for the MMOG medium, but my tears would just serve as lubricant for the next time it wanted to skullfuck me.

Thank you for the early Christmas present, kind sir.

[squirrel]

I'd weep for the MMOG medium, but my tears would just serve as lubricant for the next time it wanted to skullfuck me.

Just to agree - this is the state of the nation for me. I'm dry, i can't get wet no matter how shiney your screenshots, no matter how intricate your class/skill system, no matter how vast your environment. I've simply been used too many times - the majority not with my enjoyment as a priority. I am now a dry, withered, sandpaper like shell of my former optimistic plump moist trusting self. Ping me on Xbox live when you ship something new.

[HaemishM]

- As for SirBruce's chart: it's a convenient source of publically available numbers.

Not really. Most of his numbers have NEVER been publicly available, or verifiable. And people who use it show themselves to be money-hat craving twats too focused on WoW's monthly revenue to understand what kind of bottomless money hole they are about to happily shit their wodges of cash down.

Money holes like Interplay and a Fallout MMOG.

[Venkman]

Verifiability is less important to me than validity. I consider the metric useless. That's my primary argument when I talk people out of referencing them, particularly the pods that pull out their calculators and multiply 7.5mil by $14.99.

But that's why companies have experts, either internally or hired. It's the experience that drives the numbers. Referencing history is just a place you start. As an example, the Fallout guys now have a development budget far in excess of people who know better. Who's the winner there?

[Venkman]

Oh, and just read through the SEC slide show. I have a "huh?" on two parts:

o        Interplay  will  effectively be the first MMOG pure play western public company

Blizzard isn't? SOE wasn't? OSI wasn't? EA? Mythic?

o        Interplay's management was involved in the World of Warcraft project at Vivendi

Who? Thought they all went to Red 5?

[Lantyssa]

They aren't if you don't list them as a competitor!

[Arthur_Parker]

Not really. Most of his numbers have NEVER been publicly available, or verifiable.

That just goes to mean you can't prove him wrong either, if you link to publically available numbers he has missed, in his next update he will just use the figures you linked to (he might even credit you for the link).  He's got a fool proof system and as long as he continues to update a couple of times a year, he will continue to be listed as a source.

[Strazos]

Just because you can't prove him wrong, does not mean he is right.

[Venkman]

Yes, but like I said above: it's a source for people who don't know better. And there's a lot of money behind those people who don't know better.

But then, that's why you've got other people out there who do know better, to counterbalance things in the right places at the right times.

Smart companies don't go with just one source, particularly for the dev budgets of these games. And not-smart companies deserve what they don't get as a result.

[shiznitz]

o        Interplay  will  effectively be the first MMOG pure play western public company

Blizzard isn't? SOE wasn't? OSI wasn't? EA? Mythic?

[[/quote]

In this context, pure play means directly investable. To invest in Blizzard, one has to buy Vivendi and all the other assorted businesses. To invest in SOE, one has to buy Sony. To invest in Origin/EA Mythic....

NCSoft is a pure play, but it isn't western, hence that particular qualification.

The sentence is accurate.

[HaemishM]

Yes, but like I said above: it's a source for people who don't know better. And there's a lot of money behind those people who don't know better.

But then, that's why you've got other people out there who do know better, to counterbalance things in the right places at the right times.

Smart companies don't go with just one source, particularly for the dev budgets of these games. And not-smart companies deserve what they don't get as a result.

People who use him as a source, especially a sole source should all get AIDS and leave me their money. They are that fucking stupid.

[Lantyssa]

People of AIDS likely won't have any money to leave you.  Plus you'll have a few decades to wait for it.  Use ebola instead.

[Arthur_Parker]

Just because you can't prove him wrong, does not mean he is right.

I never said he was right, this discussion happens any time a news item uses him as a source.  Why don't we just get used to the fact he's going to be used as a source because he's the only one quoting figures.

[Strazos]

I personally think he pulls some of them out of his Woodcock ass.

[UnSub]

I personally think he pulls some of them out of his Woodcock ass.

Perhaps, but unless someone else sets up a system that measures MMOG active user numbers and shows something different, he is the authority by default.

[Trippy]

Oh, and just read through the SEC slide show. I have a "huh?" on two parts:

o        Interplay  will  effectively be the first MMOG pure play western public company

Blizzard isn't? SOE wasn't? OSI wasn't? EA? Mythic?

"Pure play" as in only does MMOGs. So that leaves out Blizzard, SOE, and EA and companies like Mythic (pre-Borging) and Turbine were never/aren't public.

o        Interplay's management was involved in the World of Warcraft project at Vivendi

Who? Thought they all went to Red 5?

Unless they hired somebody recently none of the executives and directors at Interplay are from Blizzard or Vivendi so its unclear who they are referring to.

[geldonyetich]

I like how the math of this thread works:
Fallout Licence + Dying company that sacked all its development talent = Economics discussion.

Popular license or not, if you've none of the original talent and possibly nobody actually employed to make it I can't help but think "vaporware".

Not that I'm talking about the BethSoft project.

[Krakrok]

Popular license or not, if you've none of the original talent and possibly nobody actually employed to make it I can't help but think "vaporware".

They already got the $75 million right? So it doesn't matter if they fail. They get a paycheck for the next 3 years and if it works out moneyhats for everyone. If it doesn't the investors get screwed not whoever is running Interplay.

[Trippy]

Popular license or not, if you've none of the original talent and possibly nobody actually employed to make it I can't help but think "vaporware".

They already got the $75 million right?

No. They are filing for a public offering of stock on some European exchange. They filed an 8K which included that presentation on November 30, 2006.

[Venkman]

In this context, pure play means directly investable

Oh, I get it now. Thanks. Perhaps what Trippy said also applies, but I think yours' is the more accurate given the context, as you note.

Perhaps, but unless someone else sets up a system that measures MMOG active user numbers and shows something different, he is the authority by default.

He's not measuring anything. He's reporting data other people give him. It's actually impossible to measure MMOGs nowadays without someone on the inside giving the data out publicly or privately. Or without making it up.

Most of this stuff has become State Secret(tm) outside of the occasional PR and investor-relations package. It has to because the numbers don't add up. SL has 1.5mil "citizens" but only 30k paying. Habbo Hotel has 66 million accounts. Add the 50 million of Maplestory and by that number alone, WoW is as irrelevant as, say, Shadowbane was to WoW itself. Obviously that's not a value to be directly compared, any more than flat monthly subscribers is (because neither Habbo nor Maplestory nor just about any game coming in from the East has one).

The entire system his chart shows is old school, applicable to folks who only want to talk about the genre that way. That makes them either incredible confident and rich, or just stupid. Relying on the numbers alone doesn't do that. It's the fact they're build upon a metric steadily declining in relevance.