Former SOE, Blizzard and Relic executives join forces to make AAA online game

[Kelimbror]

Not sure why people think it's doing poorly

Because the same people who hold these beliefs also believe that the goal of every MMO is to make WoW cease to exist. Thus if WoW = True, Then X = Failure.

[waddlez]

I though Wildstar was the current bet of NCsoft for a AAA online game after the lukewarm success of Gw2.

In its Q1 FY2013 report, Korean multi-national recorded total sales of ₩184,875 million, which is a 35% decrease from last quarter but a 31% increase year-on-year.

-http://www.vg247.com/2013/05/13/ncsoft-q1-guild-wars-2-sales-flatten-but-profits-up/

Theoretically if WoW was B2P and not sub based you'd probably get similar news, lots of purchases around release, then not so many afterwards (since most people who were going to play the game bought it...)

As of January of this year there was over 3 million sold for GW2, 400,000 concurrent players (back then, probably less now). 3 million sales is a lot of sales.

[namelessone]

Yeah, cause we don't have enough depopulated MMOs struggling on life support. Guys, the pool of potential MMO players is FINITE. The more games you spread this pool around - the less people will play each individual game - the worse the games will become.

[Kelimbror]

Yeah, cause we don't have enough depopulated MMOs struggling on life support. Guys, the pool of potential MMO players is FINITE. The more games you spread this pool around - the less people will play each individual game - the worse the games will become.

You make a lot of fallacious leaps in this statement. The potential customer base for any product is finite. Having more games doesn't mean the less people will play individual games and that statement also doesn't take into account how the game is 'meant' to be played. Finally, the amount of people playing a game isn't a precursor for the decline in overall development quality.

That last statement is ridiculous, but the whole thing is just...not true. Let's replace MMO for another idea and see how it sounds.

There's only a certain amount of hamburger eaters in the world people. The more new hamburgers that come out, the less a certain kind of hamburger is consumed. Which obviously means all hamburgers going forward are going to be worse than they were before.

Edit:
If anything,a product will be better when facing stiff competition. Otherwise how will they make money? There's really only a handful of outcomes regarding market saturation in situations like these. It will either:

a) Increase overall quality of new games, because they need to compete in order to make the revenue they seek
b) Drive new competitors out due to lower revenue, resulting in the desaturation of the market, ie the cyclical nature of many things in life, including products.

Logic dictates that the less competition, the higher the chance of a product being subpar as it doesn't have to raise the bar in order to convince you to buy it. And above all else, quality in art and entertainment is subjective.

[RoninaThorstone]

Yeah, cause we don't have enough depopulated MMOs struggling on life support. Guys, the pool of potential MMO players is FINITE. The more games you spread this pool around - the less people will play each individual game - the worse the games will become.

Simple solution.
Make new MMOs that are very different from the current MMOs so you draw in 'new to mmo' players.

Look at what TESO is doing, they are taking an existing, popular franchise and, rather than bastardizing it to make it more like WoW, they are pulling the UI, combat, feel, ect from TES (particularly skyrim). The result is an MMO unlike anything else on the market. Sure, not everyone will like it. But people who have never played WoW or disliked WoW might be willing to play it.

Also, "life support"? Most these games are doing more than fine. (except like... warhammer online)

[waddlez]

Yeah, cause we don't have enough depopulated MMOs struggling on life support. Guys, the pool of potential MMO players is FINITE. The more games you spread this pool around - the less people will play each individual game - the worse the games will become.

Who said a MMO requires 12 million subs? What is the average server pop (active players only please) in WoW? The problem with population is solved with server management. If you have 12 million subs but your server has about 2,000 active people it means nothing to that server other than getting the same raids with different skins.

[Wildmoon]

*gasp* Some games that ex-Blizzard employees work on don't do well and/or are bad! OH EM GEE EX BLIZZ STAFF MAKE BAD GAMEZ!

Saying most of those games are mediocre and somes are terrible would more accurate.

[rhandric]

Saying most of those games are mediocre and somes are terrible would more accurate.

You put forth one example of a game that didn't do as well as it should've, and extrapolated that all ex-Blizzard games are bad. Reality doesn't work that way.

[Fernling306]

Publishers and investors don't make the games.

Never said they did. I was talking about the influence they have on the game.

[rhandric]

Never said they did. I was talking about the influence they have on the game.

Which varies from publisher to publisher, and even studio to studio under the same publisher.

[Deleted]

the only thing I read from that article are

"BLAH BLAH YADDA YADDA BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH"

There's nothing of substance if not that there are people from three different studios and that's not like it is newsworthy considering how often this happen in the gaming industry.

[Fernling306]

Which varies from publisher to publisher, and even studio to studio under the same publisher.

Well, I would think that is obvious. I don't think every publisher influences their games the exact same as other publishers.
I'm not sure I understand your reason for posting this.

[rhandric]

Well, I would think that is obvious. I don't think every publisher influences their games the exact same as other publishers.
I'm not sure I understand your reason for posting this.

Because you claim that NCSoft "killed" most/all games that they publish, when there's nothing there to support that

[philefluxx]

I like how they are playing this off as a Dream Team studio full of "ex" employees of formerly popular studios. If Molten had any sense they would be showing us a game, not promises of potential.

[Fernling306]

Because you claim that NCSoft "killed" most/all games that they publish, when there's nothing there to support that

I never said they killed any game, I said they killed it for me. They are way too greedy for my liking, a lot like EA. I truly believe that they are the reason behind the RNG crap that we currently have to deal with in GW2, which is what really hurts the game for me. Some weapons you would have to spend $50+ worth of gems on. Sure you can buy gems with in game gold, but that is assuming you have that amount of in game gold, which I would suspect most people don't have.
I look at NCsoft as being a korean EA, and will not have high expectations until they prove themselves to me.

[Flaks]

I agree with some other posters here. Market is oversaturated with online games, meanwhile we don't have any really interesting single-player PC games lately.

Single player games usually aren't that successful. Online instantly has the draw of playing with others be they friends or strangers. Single player games have to stand on their own merit which with graphical "requirements" is more expensive to do these days. Which is why indie devs are making such great single player experiences as they aren't put to a AAA studio standard of graphic/physics.

[reckoner04]

Has there ever been a "former Blizzard employee" that actually made a popular title? The games I think of first are Hellgate: London and Marvel Heroes...

Still wish them the best of luck.

[Kelimbror]

They are way too greedy for my liking, a lot like EA.

I wanted to laugh at your joke, but then I realized you were serious. That's when I checked out from the rest of the statements because it's just not even remotely true.

[Fernling306]

I wanted to laugh at your joke, but then I realized you were serious. That's when I checked out from the rest of the statements because it's just not even remotely true.

It's just my opinion. I guess I don't have too much to base it off of, but these cox boxes sure seem like greed to me. You would have to pay as much as or more than the cost of a brand new game to acquire a single character bound weapon skin.

[CrossNgen]

It's just my opinion. I guess I don't have too much to base it off of, but these cox boxes sure seem like greed to me. You would have to pay as much as or more than the cost of a brand new game to acquire a single character bound weapon skin.

Opinion differs from facts, the fact is that NCsoft is not even on it's first step to being near as greedy as EA.