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Thread: Funcom Q2 report - revenues decrease

  1. #61

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    Quote Originally Posted by Greyloins View Post
    I think Bibik hit the mark though - the MMO market in general is in a bad spot. It isn't just FC, every MMO with only 2 real exceptions have it bad. I don't think any Western Dev will choose to invest much in MMOs considering all the failures of the last 10 years, and I think even if FC's financial situation was great and Lego was a big success, they probably wouldn't choose to invest much into AoC and TSW anyhow.
    For an existing game like AoC, the choice isn't between the launch cost of an AAA title and next-to-nothing though.

    When you look at FC's annual reports (which I have quoted from extensively in this thread), you see that AoC has consistently outperformed FC's internal revenue targets for the last couple of years, while their other titles (TSW, Lego) have equally consistently failed to do so. Which shows that some additional investment into the game would very likely make sense. There are two reasons why FC's don't act upon this:

    * First, a company in FC's shape won't get financing from any rational investor.
    * Secondy, given that TSW and now Lego are B2P games, FC obviously feel under pressure to create content for those games (albeit at a slow pace as well), while they treat sub revenues from a AoC as a given. Of course, this makes a lot of sense in the short term, but isn't a viable strategy in the long term.

    Note that both reasons are specific to FC, i.e. they would not necessarily apply to a new owner. In the event that FC were to find a buyer, I'd expect some additional investment into the game, though obviously on a quite limited scale. The real issue would be finding a buyer though - given the mess that is AoC's code, I wonder whether anyone would really bother.
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  2. #62

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rathothis View Post
    (...) The real issue would be finding a buyer though - given the mess that is AoC's code, I wonder whether anyone would really bother.
    Another company would not probably buy the game itself,instead they would be buying the idea,the rights,the name and all that and then do something new with it.

  3. #63

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tiberivs View Post
    Another company would not probably buy the game itself,instead they would be buying the idea,the rights,the name and all that and then do something new with it.
    I'm curious how much this would cost...? How do I start looking into this...

  4. #64

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    Quote Originally Posted by Greyloins View Post
    I don't buy that stuff like player houses, or better sieges or wpvp system etc. would've saved AoC. There's not a single PvP-focused MMO that was successful, and I don't think a better launch and early decisions by FC would've made AoC the exception. On the other hand there have been several successful PvE MMOs, like the Everquests, the Final Fantasys, and most of all, WoW.

    Of course, any additional money spent on AoC would have made our current situation better, and there's no denying that FC has made some disastrous decisions both in past and recently...
    I agree with you, but Krippa is also right that more focus on polishing the games would have improved their life expectancy. Moving on from a half-finished product does not improve your odds for sales of future products.

    AoC could do with a revamp and rework of many parts and quests, including many of the lower levelling zones, and some work on the graphics, as well as just more content, such as more and new quests for all parts of the game.

    I half-agree with you on the PvP-MMO and PvE-MMO argument, but AoC did garner much interest initially for both PvE and PvP (even now many people play AoC for PvE, though I love my PvP), but the game was badly neglected while TSW was being developed, so it lost many of the people who were active. These people rarely come back, but if the cadence of updates and improvements had been kept high, then many could have been kept playing the game. And the continuous updates would have meant that the game would have been in a better state now with a larger player base.

    The lack of attention span of Funcom is the main problem the company should address.

    Some of the mechanics in the games are from the early 2000s MMOs (fetch X of Y and return to Z, boring!), and new ideas could have helped, such as more complex and involved quest chains, PvP quests, (I don’t know, just some new ideas, maybe player-designed quests that then get voted on by Testlive players and then developed by FC. AoC seems to have been made to mimic WoW despite having much broader potential for other ideas and not stuck in the “high fantasy” genre of elves, fairies and PG-13 stuff. AoC seems to have come between the WoW and new MMO timeframe, so introduced in a time of changes to MMOs, while being stuck with the old MMO ideas).

    But, the ship has sailed over the horizon, not just out of port, so I really doubt any actions can change the direction Funcom is heading and our beloved AoC. Let’s hope some person with too much money and time will buy the IP and pay some developers to upgrade it. But I seriously doubt it. We are probably looking at another gaming house buying their IP once they go into liquidation.
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  5. #65

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    Quote Originally Posted by ArcaneScientius View Post
    I agree with you, but Krippa is also right that more focus on polishing the games would have improved their life expectancy. Moving on from a half-finished product does not improve your odds for sales of future products.

    AoC could do with a revamp and rework of many parts and quests, including many of the lower levelling zones, and some work on the graphics, as well as just more content, such as more and new quests for all parts of the game.

    I half-agree with you on the PvP-MMO and PvE-MMO argument, but AoC did garner much interest initially for both PvE and PvP (even now many people play AoC for PvE, though I love my PvP), but the game was badly neglected while TSW was being developed, so it lost many of the people who were active. These people rarely come back, but if the cadence of updates and improvements had been kept high, then many could have been kept playing the game. And the continuous updates would have meant that the game would have been in a better state now with a larger player base.

    The lack of attention span of Funcom is the main problem the company should address.

    Some of the mechanics in the games are from the early 2000s MMOs (fetch X of Y and return to Z, boring!), and new ideas could have helped, such as more complex and involved quest chains, PvP quests, (I don’t know, just some new ideas, maybe player-designed quests that then get voted on by Testlive players and then developed by FC. AoC seems to have been made to mimic WoW despite having much broader potential for other ideas and not stuck in the “high fantasy” genre of elves, fairies and PG-13 stuff. AoC seems to have come between the WoW and new MMO timeframe, so introduced in a time of changes to MMOs, while being stuck with the old MMO ideas).

    But, the ship has sailed over the horizon, not just out of port, so I really doubt any actions can change the direction Funcom is heading and our beloved AoC. Let’s hope some person with too much money and time will buy the IP and pay some developers to upgrade it. But I seriously doubt it. We are probably looking at another gaming house buying their IP once they go into liquidation.
    Just one (1, ONE!) person with modding access that works permanently (including playing) the game could have solved 50% of all the major and minor bugs and problems and with a good editor the gameworld could be twice the size. This is the advantage you have with instanced gaming. If you do not use the advantages, it is the management fault.

  6. #66

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kurt2013 View Post
    Just one (1, ONE!) person with modding access that works permanently (including playing) the game could have solved 50% of all the major and minor bugs and problems and with a good editor the gameworld could be twice the size. This is the advantage you have with instanced gaming. If you do not use the advantages, it is the management fault.
    I don't think that's a realistic number when you think of all the correlation that needs to take place when you start editing code; how it'll effect existing mechanics, possible model/object issues, sound, story, etc. It's not often you'll find a programmer who can ensure it all works together ... and in an efficient amount of time.

    I'm adding a smiley-face for those who think I only advocate the despicable things in AoC .

    <---makes this a non-hostile post

    .

  7. #67

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    Quote Originally Posted by Greyloins View Post
    The thing is, they aren't investing that much into TSW either. Patch updates there have been very slow and frequently delayed as well. Now in the next month TSW should finally get its' next big PvE content since launch, and it will include 2 dungeons (the first non-seasonal dungeon content since launch... EDIT: Forgot about Penthouse) and a revamp of their raids that will bring 3 raid bosses. The thing is, all 3 raid bosses are the same that people have been killing for years, so it's basically equivalent to T5 in AoC: they're just getting the same raid bosses with pretty much no new assets but a revamped difficulty.

    Don't get me wrong, TSW is fantastic, but it has the same problem as AoC with very slow development... I think Bibik hit the mark though - the MMO market in general is in a bad spot. It isn't just FC, every MMO with only 2 real exceptions have it bad. I don't think any Western Dev will choose to invest much in MMOs considering all the failures of the last 10 years, and I think even if FC's financial situation was great and Lego was a big success, they probably wouldn't choose to invest much into AoC and TSW anyhow.
    Mmo market in bad spot? Failures last 10 years.... Its not the markets fault, its the games that sucks donkeyass...just look on
    Conan,, is great the graphics,encounters, details,the feel in certain areas n such,the combatmechanics is still in its own,aggrosystem that almost is n art to fully master as soldier,,except from aoc n tsw i only seen many ******** and Way to easy games the last 7 years

    Conans launch failed, , fc shouldnt have released the game at that time,, they should have opted for more time polishing stuff after tortage and cleaning up the worst bugs,.. Cant remember now what bugs was at launch.. Looking over the quests, fix +add those extra that lacked at start, and some more work to give players some cool supricecontent for the delay.. But was prolly eidos forcing fc to release... Cause they must have known what should happen..funcom could also had been just lazy n ****ed it up on their own.
    The reputation fc n conan got from the launch i think that ruined most chanses for the game to get a healthy growing base of players from the start,

  8. #68

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    Quote Originally Posted by bprcisco View Post
    Mmo market in bad spot? Failures last 10 years.... Its not the markets fault, its the games that sucks donkeyass...just look on
    Conan,, is great the graphics,encounters, details,the feel in certain areas n such,the combatmechanics is still in its own,aggrosystem that almost is n art to fully master as soldier,,except from aoc n tsw i only seen many ******** and Way to easy games the last 7 years

    Conans launch failed, , fc shouldnt have released the game at that time,, they should have opted for more time polishing stuff after tortage and cleaning up the worst bugs,.. Cant remember now what bugs was at launch.. Looking over the quests, fix +add those extra that lacked at start, and some more work to give players some cool supricecontent for the delay.. But was prolly eidos forcing fc to release... Cause they must have known what should happen..funcom could also had been just lazy n ****ed it up on their own.
    The reputation fc n conan got from the launch i think that ruined most chanses for the game to get a healthy growing base of players from the start,
    I can't think of a single MMO that was a good at launch. Close to every major release for over 10 years has been a mess that people hyped up and then abandoned after their first month ran out. Even WoW was garbage when it launched, with lots of shitty design, overfilled and crashing servers etc. While AoC and AO had legendary crap launches even by MMO standards, TSW's wasn't all that bad and we still know it didn't take off despite being a fantastic game in most regards. And now, WoW is bleeding subs like never before, but it doesn't seem like the other MMOs are really getting much of an increase in playerbase, with maybe FFXIV as the exception. That should be enough to tell us that the MMO market is in decline, and if that wasn't enough, there's the fact that far less AAA MMOs are being developed now, suggesting that game companies are catching on to the trend. Either, millions of people have stopped playing MMOs, or millions of people were never really interested in MMOs other than WoW in the first place.

  9. #69

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    Wow has a massive loss of players , but that game is on a completely different level , player wise.
    If I am not wrong , even after this exodus it still has more players than AoC has had in total over all the years.
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  10. #70

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    Quote Originally Posted by slackjoint View Post
    Wow has a massive loss of players , but that game is on a completely different level , player wise.
    If I am not wrong , even after this exodus it still has more players than AoC has had in total over all the years.
    Wow still has 5.5 million players.

    Aoc might have 0.1% of that, or 5,500 players.

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