Indeed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidos_Interactive
That said, while FC are not to be blamed for the rushed launch, they made a number of bad commercial calls themselves - most notably, opting to focus their resources on a new MMO instead of supporting their existing one(s).
Rathothis|Tempest of Set || Tigrathes|Dark Templar || Isitnofret|Herald of Xotli
BS|Sin|Demo|Barb|Conq
Sudatorius|Noob barb on Rage
What they should have done is instead of dumping money on 'the Secret World' and a Lego game which frankly has a niche market and comes off as another generic MMO with a Lego skin, re-invest money into AoC, update graphics, update the combat system, and fix every possible thing that went wrong with AoC and introduce to the world AoC 2.
BTW, does anyone know how much more 'The Secret World' earns for Funcom compared to AoC? They just lump the two together along with Anarchy Online into 'large scale MMOs' in their balance sheet. 'The Secret World' seems to be getting regular -fresh- updates (since this is the only way to get money in a B2P game) on a timely basis, while AoC's updates can be calculated in geological time. What gives?
Rathothis|Tempest of Set || Tigrathes|Dark Templar || Isitnofret|Herald of Xotli
BS|Sin|Demo|Barb|Conq
Sudatorius|Noob barb on Rage
Ah, thank you for that. Always thought TSW was making far more for Funcom then AoC was.
Something, to chew on however. Pre-TSW, the revenue was 2.5 million, let us assume that this is effectively AoC's revenue(although this number presumably includes AO) then we get the surge to 10 million with secret world launching(and the base game being sold in stores/online) So, roughly 7.5 million attributed to TSW sales. We see a steady decline in TSW (although B2P chapters were being sold all this time) by the time the Tokyo expansion comes out we're looking at 3.8 million with probably ~2.5 million of that being AoC+AO. That means through store/chapter sales TSW is only pulling in 1.3 million in sales? We'll see after the Tokyo expansion gets a boost or not...but if it remains around there then TSW is in serious trouble.
In other speculative news, say Conan generates 2 million a year stand-a-alone (we're assuming AO still generates 500k per year for Funcom). Say also most people pay the yearly sub up and perhaps once in a while buy some FC points, say also -some-people pay the 15 bucks monthly. Let us then suppose that each person is roughly worth 15 bucks per month or 180 dollars a year. That means in a very roundabout estimate that there are currently 11,000 paying players in AoC. Even if you evenly divide the 2.5 million between AO and AoC(this is most definetly not going to be the case since AoC is far and away more popular then AO) you still get 7000 paying(supposedly active) players in AoC.
So, then the question becomes..where the ÷_%# are all these players?!
Last edited by Valicard; 25th October 2014 at 14:10.
Hm, is there any reason to do dungeons or pvp except for the very few new players? Dont tell me u are havi g fun running the same dungeons and minigames u did the previous 4 - 6 years.
There exists some people who have trouble finding a solid/active guild that can succesfully round up 24 players to be on at certain times. And really, all I want to do is get on anytime round up 5 other people and do a dungeon. I find dungeons more fun,personal, and much more exciting. My most exciting/moments were from 6mans, my most "damn I should really quit this game" moments came from 24 man raids.
I think you forgot about the revenue decline before TSW. AoC should have continued to decline after, which means TSW is worth a larger share than you assume. Helps explain the population differences. TSW I believe has a better population than AoC, but it is really hard to gauge without numbers.
Back on topic:
The more time I spend in T5 Yak, the more I think the fight is unbalanced. With a reasonably balanced raid, your aoe dps is too low to reliably get through the adds. This feels like Entity all over again. Stack aoe ranged dps if you want an easier win. If the difficulty is really supposed to be at the level you have with a fully balanced raid, then the fight is much too difficult.
Last edited by tapwater; 25th October 2014 at 17:12.