I'm not sure how much they charged. It probably isn't that much. But the game could go on (and probably will at some point) without any voiced update so those fees won't drive STO's financial needs forever. They're also sunk costs, which means they won't factor into future decisions.
Once Cryptic signs the check, they aren't getting that money back either way. So it won't dictate strategy. If it is a loss, it's a loss.
What will dictate strategy are ongoing expenses and targets. And those will be set by things like cost of capital. And factoring into that is apparently shareholders using average time spent per player as a marketshare measure. That will cause investors to pull out if they aren't happy which will lower the stock price and raise the cost of capital.
The problem with using time spent as a marketshare metric is that it goes against the idea of players spending money to save time or, rather, it weights our interests directly against those of the shareholders. I have to say, it makes me inclined to say that, in the future, I'd only play a game by a publicly traded firm if it's subscription based and only consider F2P for privately held companies. Because they're using a game design skewing investment analysis tool.
Somebody should at the least write an article about that for gaming industry investment circles. Because the analysis tool they're using weights their interests against players and, in doing so, creates stock volatility. Because any action taken to satisfy shareholders on marketshare (as expressed through player logged-in time) comes at the expense of something sold to players (the value of time). Which means: benefit the shareholders, hurt the product, hurt the shareholders longterm.
So, I ran all of this buy a pretty prominent economist. I would be shocked if nobody at Cryptic has read his books because he specializes in the intersection of economics and tech sector (he was an editor for both a tech magazine and an economics publication), with an eye towards free products.
I asked whether the design tendency to sell shorter time completion on tasks in an MMO conflicted with using time spent by players as a marketshare metric.
Here's what he said:
Smart analysis! But I think you're confusing overall time in game with time necessary to complete a task. The idea is that faster task completion leads to greater enjoyment and engagement, thus longer overall gameplay.
I think he probably has a point for facebook games but that we may have the opposite situation playing out here because time spent to complete a task is being lengthened to increase time spent in game, which would mean slower task completion -> less enjoyment -> shorter gameplay.
He did illustrate what I think the IDEAL relationship is, which is longer playtime as a product of enjoyment and spending leading to superior enjoyment, ie. trading required time for chosen time.
Obviously, his analysis doesn't agree with mine perfectly (he wasn't commenting on the specifics of STO and I wasn't asking him to) but I didn't think I should withhold it simply because it didn't reinforce my point. I think there's still a strong analysis/feedback point to be taken into consideration here, particularly if you build on the model he outlines.
... I think he probably has a point for facebook games but that we may have the opposite situation playing out here because time spent to complete a task is being lengthened to increase time spent in game, which would mean slower task completion -> less enjoyment -> shorter gameplay...
This reminds me of a Foundry mission I recently played. It was very well written: non-linear information discovery (i.e. you had to look around for consoles that told you what you needed); commbadge system (no idea how they wrote that but it was impressive, button on right to comm with your NPC "team"); relationships (a couple of key NPCs integral to the story and who you didn't know if they were a friend or an enemy at some point); puzzles that felt like you were "doing" something (e.g. you felt were actually repairing equipment to make something with that equipment); NPC enemies that were differentiated (e.g. on a planet there were roving gangs, a leader and his bodyguard, and 'scavengers').
It was a mission that took a long time but you immersed yourself in it, things didn't operate as "kill 5 groups of 5" even when you killed multiple groups, things were just presented and written well; you felt as though you as the player had some semblance of control about how to progress, and as a player you indeed did have control about whether you "knew" the answer by looking for it, or merely "guessed" by pressing buttons. It was I thought, a good mission.
Now to the point: was it a long mission in terms of time expended? Yes, I think it was about an hour. Was it a long mission in terms of clock-watching repetitive boredom? Obviously not. To compare to the Facebook game model, there were more tasks required to achieve a goal, but each task was done once and was over quickly (psychologically, Task A and Task B can involve "activate console" but if one's for power and the others for targeting, then it seems like two different tasks compared to say, "Activate five power consoles throughout the building to turn on the lights"). As a player I felt a sense of constant movement and thus, achievement towards an overall goal. When I was held back by say equipment not working, it felt like a story-driven setback not merely a "Oh look another group of NPCs to blow up now!" So this Foundry mission's model had both: fast time to complete individual tasks, but many tasks to lead to a goal, with setbacks that were both differentiated and story-driven, and where the player's engagement was necessary to achieve those goals faster leading to an overall sense of achievement and satisfaction.
So it's possible, even with STO's limited mechanics to have some good fun missions, but they must be adventure-driven, and the key is in the writing. If a player can achieve something like a commsystem in Foundry, then so can the devs. "Five groups of five... keep em there longer with 1 million HP NPCs!" is just lazy and totally without thought, in the extreme.
It makes one wonder just how successful STO and NeverWinter (the two main U.S. 'Holdings' have actually been of late, So, as the Chinese managers of perfect World continue to direct PWE to take their U.S. games further in the direction of the 'Asian Grinder' paradigm; their concurrent player numbers drop and their profit decreases...
What will Perfect World management take away from this turn of events in their U.S. subsidiaries run by PWE? Will PWE/Cryptic renew the STO IP rights with CBS when the current licensing term ends?
Just wait till Q4..The $#@ will hit the fan then :P
well if sto is gone, one think willb e sure - it will NOT be players fault. History know many well established trademarks which ended because managment of company was to stuborn and blind to market.
fifa manager - started in cca 1998, amassed masive amount of fans, have very nice sales, but since bf overtaken develompment under ea in 2006? many players started to complain how series path is taken, and they get louder and louder evey new season, devs didnt listened and in 2013 it was last yer in which thier seriers was relased (and fifa 2014 was mere small bugfixing + ulocking of locked stuff).
In eve online many players vere unhapy about path of game too, devs didnt listened so they decided to take radical steps - they declared blockade - they dont play game as usual and they will prevent "blocade runner" to play game as usual. It was sucesfull, devs get players points , apologized and now are more responsive to thier ideas/demands.
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Oh god....Geko with stakes (and control) of cryptic and so STO...
-Runs for the hills-
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So, I ran all of this buy a pretty prominent economist. I would be shocked if nobody at Cryptic has read his books because he specializes in the intersection of economics and tech sector (he was an editor for both a tech magazine and an economics publication), with an eye towards free products.
I asked whether the design tendency to sell shorter time completion on tasks in an MMO conflicted with using time spent by players as a marketshare metric.
Here's what he said:
I think he probably has a point for facebook games but that we may have the opposite situation playing out here because time spent to complete a task is being lengthened to increase time spent in game, which would mean slower task completion -> less enjoyment -> shorter gameplay.
He did illustrate what I think the IDEAL relationship is, which is longer playtime as a product of enjoyment and spending leading to superior enjoyment, ie. trading required time for chosen time.
Obviously, his analysis doesn't agree with mine perfectly (he wasn't commenting on the specifics of STO and I wasn't asking him to) but I didn't think I should withhold it simply because it didn't reinforce my point. I think there's still a strong analysis/feedback point to be taken into consideration here, particularly if you build on the model he outlines.
This reminds me of a Foundry mission I recently played. It was very well written: non-linear information discovery (i.e. you had to look around for consoles that told you what you needed); commbadge system (no idea how they wrote that but it was impressive, button on right to comm with your NPC "team"); relationships (a couple of key NPCs integral to the story and who you didn't know if they were a friend or an enemy at some point); puzzles that felt like you were "doing" something (e.g. you felt were actually repairing equipment to make something with that equipment); NPC enemies that were differentiated (e.g. on a planet there were roving gangs, a leader and his bodyguard, and 'scavengers').
It was a mission that took a long time but you immersed yourself in it, things didn't operate as "kill 5 groups of 5" even when you killed multiple groups, things were just presented and written well; you felt as though you as the player had some semblance of control about how to progress, and as a player you indeed did have control about whether you "knew" the answer by looking for it, or merely "guessed" by pressing buttons. It was I thought, a good mission.
Now to the point: was it a long mission in terms of time expended? Yes, I think it was about an hour. Was it a long mission in terms of clock-watching repetitive boredom? Obviously not. To compare to the Facebook game model, there were more tasks required to achieve a goal, but each task was done once and was over quickly (psychologically, Task A and Task B can involve "activate console" but if one's for power and the others for targeting, then it seems like two different tasks compared to say, "Activate five power consoles throughout the building to turn on the lights"). As a player I felt a sense of constant movement and thus, achievement towards an overall goal. When I was held back by say equipment not working, it felt like a story-driven setback not merely a "Oh look another group of NPCs to blow up now!" So this Foundry mission's model had both: fast time to complete individual tasks, but many tasks to lead to a goal, with setbacks that were both differentiated and story-driven, and where the player's engagement was necessary to achieve those goals faster leading to an overall sense of achievement and satisfaction.
So it's possible, even with STO's limited mechanics to have some good fun missions, but they must be adventure-driven, and the key is in the writing. If a player can achieve something like a commsystem in Foundry, then so can the devs. "Five groups of five... keep em there longer with 1 million HP NPCs!" is just lazy and totally without thought, in the extreme.
Just wait till Q4..The $#@ will hit the fan then :P
fifa manager - started in cca 1998, amassed masive amount of fans, have very nice sales, but since bf overtaken develompment under ea in 2006? many players started to complain how series path is taken, and they get louder and louder evey new season, devs didnt listened and in 2013 it was last yer in which thier seriers was relased (and fifa 2014 was mere small bugfixing + ulocking of locked stuff).
In eve online many players vere unhapy about path of game too, devs didnt listened so they decided to take radical steps - they declared blockade - they dont play game as usual and they will prevent "blocade runner" to play game as usual. It was sucesfull, devs get players points , apologized and now are more responsive to thier ideas/demands.