Letter of the Month from game director

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Originally Posted by Rathothis

the way to make money in the MMO business is to provide solid and continuous support for your games...

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The way to make money in MMO business is to be Blizzard and have World of Warcraft. Almost any other company (that includes the crazy huge and rich guys at Bethesda and EA/Bioware) didn't make a lot with their investment. Most of them haven't even made their money back. MMOs are a dead genre in this day and age for the cost they have of running them successfully. Sure, if you completely align your company and you have some angel investors you can build a production system that will churn out content with a very small team etc.. but big bucks? "The money"... nope you won't make "the money" with an MMO anytime soon again.

Even the classics we all love so dearly were never the big money makers. Sure their companies were successful, due to a stable subscription crowd, that didn't have anywhere else to go, but they are far from rich, hence them being sold time and again between different companies.

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Originally Posted by AoCWaldgeist

The way to make money in MMO business is to be Blizzard and have World of Warcraft. Almost any other company (that includes the crazy huge and rich guys at Bethesda and EA/Bioware) didn't make a lot with their investment.

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Sure no new MMOs is likely to achieve a similar return on investment as Blizzard did (and do) on WoW. But that's not the point. MMOs can still be profitable - indeed, looking at the financials of your former employer, it is pretty evident that AoC was profitable (though not nearly as much as they had hoped). My point was simply that they would have been better off baking smaller cakes, as we say in German :)

Typical German. A cake is never big enough :p

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Originally Posted by Rathothis

Sure no new MMOs is likely to achieve a similar return on investment as Blizzard did (and do) on WoW. But that's not the point. MMOs can still be profitable - indeed, looking at the financials of your former employer, it is pretty evident that AoC was profitable (though not nearly as much as they had hoped). My point was simply that they would have been better off baking smaller cakes, as we say in German :)

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Yeah... I agree. If they would've done that, maybe I would still be working there :) *sigh*

A lot of water has been flown down the river since then though and it's always easy to judge in hindsight. Back then I felt TSW was not the right horse to set your money on, but I was a crazy (and I still am) Conan fans... so what do I know. Maybe if they hadn't made TSW, never gotten the deal with EA, never gotten additional funds from investors for it the company and Age of Conan would be dead by now. Who knows really... we weren't the ones making the big, hard decisions.

But I agree that Funcom made mistakes, as any company does. Sometimes the people who loved it the most had to pay the price :) (the fans and some very dedicated employees)

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Originally Posted by AoCWaldgeist

But I agree that Funcom made mistakes, as any company does. Sometimes the people who loved it the most had to pay the price :) (the fans and some very dedicated employees)

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Guildwars2 sold pretty well, so as other games with different business models. I think what is outdated is the business model that AoC is using, thats how you don't make big money. There are plenty of other ways, just look at WoT or similar titles.

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Originally Posted by Ythor

Guildwars2 sold pretty well, so as other games with different business models. I think what is outdated is the business model that AoC is using, thats how you don't make big money. There are plenty of other ways, just look at WoT or similar titles.

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If that was the only challenge... there would be less companies and games failing and closing their doors. I've got a lot of friends across the globe in those "other companies" and they all struggle on the same things Age of Conan has struggled. You read the same threads on their forums about the same things. The older a game gets, the less its developed and considering... Age of Conan is still here... that's not what you can say about a lot of other games that started around or slightly before and even after its time. Also if they've used the so called "better business models".

I don't think the solution to financial problems and income is that easy, or it would be a recipe going around the globe.

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Originally Posted by AoCWaldgeist

I don't think the solution to financial problems and income is that easy, or it would be a recipe going around the globe.

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But it's really not that hard either as it starts with basic principles. For example, right now it's extremely hard to spend your money in AoC, be it the item shop or non-working payment gateways (I mean seriously, in 2016?). I bet if they would make spending easier they could increase their revenue by a few percent. Not much and without touching the actual game. This is what I meant mostly.

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Originally Posted by Ythor

But it's really not that hard either as it starts with basic principles. For example, right now it's extremely hard to spend your money in AoC, be it the item shop or non-working payment gateways (I mean seriously, in 2016?). I bet if they would make spending easier they could increase their revenue by a few percent. Not much and without touching the actual game. This is what I meant mostly.

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I am not sure they have a tools programmer for their billing systems right now. Maybe they got no one right now, which would explain payment gates not working.

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Originally Posted by Odonoptera

Just so you know, Conan Exiles is being handled by a different team that's completely unrelated to the Durham team and the development of Age of Conan. I'll go poke Tilty.

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Hmm didn't work it seems - try the pointy end :)

GD doesn't care. Whatever they are working on next for aoc don't want to share it with us, players customers etc.