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Thread: For all you wondering where your sub money goes

  1. #1

    Default For all you wondering where your sub money goes

    https://www.playminifigures.com/buy/

    So, the Lego game that Funcom funded, rather than working on AoC???

    No surprises here, it was a huge flop and is discontinued.

    To any of you how can't seem to help themselves and keep buying ridiculous caches for random trash, please be aware where your money goes to...and know that because you keep forking over good money for bad content, Funcom will continue this pay2win/payfortrash scheme instead of working on the many suggestions to actually improve this game.

  2. #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by weretiger302 View Post
    https://www.playminifigures.com/buy/

    So, the Lego game that Funcom funded, rather than working on AoC???

    No surprises here, it was a huge flop and is discontinued.

    To any of you how can't seem to help themselves and keep buying ridiculous caches for random trash, please be aware where your money goes to...and know that because you keep forking over good money for bad content, Funcom will continue this pay2win/payfortrash scheme instead of working on the many suggestions to actually improve this game.
    All true. But sadly Funcom will never invest seriously anymore in this game, whatever iperpriced bags of trash are sold or not. Live with that.

    I honestly hope they don't sell many items from the new store.
    I wish the best to Funcom employees, they deserve a pay as everyone else, but this new store model is quite an unrespectful offence to players intelligence.

    Sadly there are bigger problems all over the world so.. I guess we can live with Funcom making a few money with some people trashing their money.. I just hope someone doesn't get mad and trashes way too much money for nothing..
    Retired nab.. once it was Korando (PvP 10 BS), Andromaeda (PvP 10 Sin), Calore (PvP 10 Demo) and minions...

  3. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by weretiger302 View Post
    https://www.playminifigures.com/buy/

    So, the Lego game that Funcom funded, rather than working on AoC???

    No surprises here, it was a huge flop and is discontinued.

    To any of you how can't seem to help themselves and keep buying ridiculous caches for random trash, please be aware where your money goes to...and know that because you keep forking over good money for bad content, Funcom will continue this pay2win/payfortrash scheme instead of working on the many suggestions to actually improve this game.
    This sadly was predictable, if you just looked at the business model and target audience. They had boss fights, premade content and lottery grind boxes there. THis is nothing for children...look at the successfull lego games, especially in lego you do not limit creativity of your customers.
    It might not only be linked to funcom, because lego as franchise has become fishy overall and might have set some boundaries (it is also not the first lego game shutting down while still having an audience). Can be an industry problem too, just look at "the park" and compare it with "the longest journey".
    Last edited by Kurt2013; 20th June 2016 at 09:12.

  4. #4

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    For those complaining that profit from Age of Conan is used to fund other games rather than all being re-invested in AoC - well, that is how all game companies operate.

    At least some of the profit (if any) from old games are used to fund the development of new games, and those in turn will be used to fund more games.
    Otherwise how would they be able to afford making new games? Borrow money is the only other option - and that is something which is best avoided whenever possible.
    (Just look at Funcom - their major source of financial trouble is old debts they can't afford to repay all at once.)

    Eventually the old games will cease providing a profit, and if they haven't invested in any new games by then, that would be the end of the company - which is why game companies generally do make new games - many of which will flop, but that is the nature of the business.


    The people at Funcom seem to have come to the conclusion that making any heavy investments in AoC is unlikely to generate enough return to be worth it. They are likely correct - if they haven't managed to turn things around by now they never will - except possibly by a really big re-investment which would be a very big gamble, and one that Funcom don't have the money for anyway.
    So by now they are only making minor changes and additions to the game, in the hope of squeezing out some final profit.

    For those wondering where things went wrong, the answer is: All the way back in 2008. The game had a bad launch and the problems were not fixed quickly enough. As they say, you never get a second chance of making a first impression, and Funcom blew their chance with AoC. Most (all?) of the launch problems got fixed eventually, but too late. People had already left the game, never to come back, and AoC got a bad reputation.

  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by ErikT View Post
    For those complaining that profit from Age of Conan is used to fund other games rather than all being re-invested in AoC - well, that is how all game companies operate.

    At least some of the profit (if any) from old games are used to fund the development of new games, and those in turn will be used to fund more games.
    Otherwise how would they be able to afford making new games? Borrow money is the only other option - and that is something which is best avoided whenever possible.
    (Just look at Funcom - their major source of financial trouble is old debts they can't afford to repay all at once.)

    Eventually the old games will cease providing a profit, and if they haven't invested in any new games by then, that would be the end of the company - which is why game companies generally do make new games - many of which will flop, but that is the nature of the business.
    You are definitely right here, but it is not an absolute rule. It depends a lot on how you do it as well.

    Quote Originally Posted by ErikT View Post
    The people at Funcom seem to have come to the conclusion that making any heavy investments in AoC is unlikely to generate enough return to be worth it. They are likely correct - if they haven't managed to turn things around by now they never will - except possibly by a really big re-investment which would be a very big gamble, and one that Funcom don't have the money for anyway.
    So by now they are only making minor changes and additions to the game, in the hope of squeezing out some final profit.

    For those wondering where things went wrong, the answer is: All the way back in 2008. The game had a bad launch and the problems were not fixed quickly enough. As they say, you never get a second chance of making a first impression, and Funcom blew their chance with AoC. Most (all?) of the launch problems got fixed eventually, but too late. People had already left the game, never to come back, and AoC got a bad reputation.
    They were wrong in the past here with TSW launch and LEGO launch too. They probably got this idea by the expectations from khitai expansion (which was also based on a risky assumption). But you are right in your assesment of their conclusions, which is part why the community is upset, because for years they never even tried properly and this appears the last step in a series of sabotage moves. The market for modules and addons for AoC was always there, people were always willing to pay for it too. People see the "final profit" and it will backfire hugely on the company as a whole (this is why i speak of sabotage). Compared to a different approach of measures similar in cost, but with a better longterm return (which could also mean free advertising for other products). This actions have not worked well for other game studios too. This is why i am so sure, that funcoms assesment of the situation is gravely wrong...it is like a man and a horse in the desert who slaughters his horse for a quick drink and food, but perishes in the end, while had he catered the horse a tad more, he woud have reached the end and both would have survived.

    I find it weird, that they seem to blame the population ("people already left", "bad reputation" etc.), while no one else was mainly responsible but their marketing and strategic planning (in addition to some other criminal and external things). For years now they did bad documentation, kept marketing argueable changes or bad content, while keeping quiet about the good changes and actual work they did (often enough hyped content patches broke fixed content over the smaller patches as well and they only bothered to partly fix the hyped part). Following your argumentation it would be all the more reason to not abandon AoC. People will see it as exactly that and conclude that they are neither willing or capable to make up on a mistake. They can even still do this properly, with rebudgeting and bringing AoC to at least a state where they can keep it content with minimal maintenance and a few regular content updates. Especially now when they try to cash in with a new game again (and with eternal alphas it matters a lot, if you are able to release content and do maintenance) ...and you can count on winning or loosing population for that, depending on how they handle AoC.

    One example is the crafting revamp. They had a working version and updated their database only to scrap it in the end and move all work to a more risky venture. It is also an example of marketing sabotaging their revenue: They had a working system that would have been easily compatible or expandable even to what they showed in the 2012 video. They even adapted the databases to make transitions possible. But because they wanted to market and sell it as something completely new (which it wasn't in the 2012 video, just an expansion and invisible recipes) they encountered too much resistance and problems. The old system got inbalanced and unattractive over the years, mainly because of no updates, no expansion and no new content fitting the other new game content. Instead of at least adding things there, they completely abandoned it and moved the ideas to a new game (new start, new players to fool)...only that with the theme choice, it is not really a new start or completely new players. Thus instead of fixing the bad reputation, they expand it to new avenues

    Bottom line: AoC is not dead, unless you kill it. Do this at your own risk...i already said, the customers only gain money and free time, the company looses a lot more. Rethink the shop changes (products, popup spam and prices need fix asap, design can be fixed later), fix the downsides of membership revamp (you do not loose anything by making good offers), fix prices and lotteries). Then tell people about it without lies and marketing hype, just advertise old school on websites, virtual and print media, forums and email (a more attractive model is sure something to advertise, but remove any controversal point first). Then spent part of your budget to constant maintenance and bugfixes to AoC (if no one wants to do it, hire someone with experience with bad code and documentation). TSW proves you can do it.
    This model will not look as good in current corporate expectation trends (less max revenue), but it will earn money with oversightable risk (a lot more minimum revenue).
    Also: Do not forget to bring more payment options back!
    Last edited by Kurt2013; 20th June 2016 at 13:16.

  6. #6

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    I doubt they make any money on AoC, no matter how many caches the 30 active people buy.
    Kinaputten

  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mogsters View Post
    I doubt they make any money on AoC, no matter how many caches the 30 active people buy.
    They reached the point of paid off investment years ago (check annual reports) and were making true profit on it already for a while... i fear for now you are right though unless they turn things around quick.

  8. #8

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    But AoC is profitable. As Kurt pointed out, the investment paid off years ago. It's now in the area where it makes a stable, albeit slight profit. It's not millions, but it's also essentially no-risk profit.

    The problem is Funcom, as a company, is always chasing the next homerun- just look at how much they're hyping exiles. What's wrong with a stable blue-chip game? There's no reason to cannabalize the profits AoC makes and divert them into some new game venture that's high-risk/high reward, especially since Funcom has been a notorious underperformer in the high reward aspect. Hell, the company recently had a negative valuation until they defferred payment of their loans and found some angel investor to just waste $10 million given to them.

    This is why I left the game...the game was great, and the people were for the most part pretty good (maybe 50%, but that's still good enough for me). But the company was just utter trash. And personally, I won't give money to a bad company to allow them to keep making bad decisions. A little investment in AoC content could grow revenue pretty well, but instead it's the all-out cash grab they want: pay 2 win, buy a full T3 character, and in a year or 2 they'll probably just mothball the whole game when there's nothing left to sell.

  9. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by weretiger302 View Post
    But AoC is profitable. As Kurt pointed out, the investment paid off years ago. It's now in the area where it makes a stable, albeit slight profit. It's not millions, but it's also essentially no-risk profit.

    The problem is Funcom, as a company, is always chasing the next homerun- just look at how much they're hyping exiles. What's wrong with a stable blue-chip game? There's no reason to cannabalize the profits AoC makes and divert them into some new game venture that's high-risk/high reward, especially since Funcom has been a notorious underperformer in the high reward aspect. Hell, the company recently had a negative valuation until they defferred payment of their loans and found some angel investor to just waste $10 million given to them.

    This is why I left the game...the game was great, and the people were for the most part pretty good (maybe 50%, but that's still good enough for me). But the company was just utter trash. And personally, I won't give money to a bad company to allow them to keep making bad decisions. A little investment in AoC content could grow revenue pretty well, but instead it's the all-out cash grab they want: pay 2 win, buy a full T3 character, and in a year or 2 they'll probably just mothball the whole game when there's nothing left to sell.
    You'll be able to come back and play almost the entire game for free once the new Membership terms are implemented. This is assuming, of course, that you bought Rise of the Godslayer and Turan which you probably did. Any purchase in the past will get you Dragon's Spine. Funcom is making this gesture toward the lapsed players that will now not have to sub to play the end game.

    ...and AOC will still be developed, albeit slowly. Even Anarchy Online still receives maintenance and periodic updates.
    Last edited by Anzu; 20th June 2016 at 14:49.
    Guild 'House Jade Asp' - PvE server

  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by Radicaltop View Post
    You'll be able to come back and play almost the entire game for free once the new Membership terms are implemented. This is assuming, of course, that you bought Rise of the Godslayer and Turan which you probably did. Any purchase in the past will get you Dragon's Spine. Funcom is making this gesture toward the lapsed players that will now not have to sub to play the end game.
    For this alone i would be tempted to pay a sub again, but looking at the other stuff and the shop, i can not. This is not a gesture, it was a necessary move, but to earn them money it required exactly the opposite of what they did shopwise (more products to choose from and lower prices) and partly of what they did membershipwise. What a consolidation we all can now see the end of the game as f2p, instead of getting reassured in funcom as company and keep playing as many games of them as we like
    It is also not completely free (as you yourself said with the 10g limit, also charslots), you will still hit a paywall.
    Last edited by Kurt2013; 20th June 2016 at 14:45.

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