Riot Games even showed us that the western market doesn't need to bind itself to an eastern publisher to make a great business, nor do they have to buy the rights for an eastern game just to profit. 30+million accounts and who knows how many more dollars came out of a game that was basically developed in a basement. They crafted their product. And PUBLISHED their own game. Riot owns the servers, Riot owns the licence, Riot owns the game...period. And they've found so much success in it that they're able to expand their services to other countries and bring in money from around the world.
The thing is that Riot hit an untapped MOBA market and not an oversaturated MMORPG market. They hit a lucrative esport niche, and with it came a license to print money. If superhero MMOs were that lucrative, then CO would have a full dev staff, City of Heroes would still be with us, and DCUO wouldn't have gone full tilt to the console crowd.
What we're seeing here isn't the problem, we're only seeing the symptoms. The problem is far more systematic and goes well beyond Cryptic and PWE.
My vote is for having the next superhero genre game be owned by absolutely NO eastern companies. Keep it in our backyard. By players for players.
by players maybe, but regionalisnm? cryptic wasn't getting that much more love under atari than it is under pwi. a little more but not much post launch. Ncsoft was, is, and will be a game killer, so shame on me there for trusting them. furthermore, ea, activision and even ubisoft have pulled some shady dealings whereas square/enix still has ffXI chugging along AND listened to fans and is reworking XIV. the ideal for me would be for ex cryptic and paragon employees to have enough cash to work independently. and most importantly, make the game work offline as well as online, like phantasy star universe/ online.(though i have to admit, sega did kill psu on pc/spps2 while ago, was later with updates to the us/eu client and pso2 looks online only, so a step backwards there, but we Should demand an offline client be standard for mmos).
so it isnt that eastern companies are to blame, its that large companies make financial decisions that can leave fans of niche genres in the cold...and that we need to demand that mmos evolve in a more consumer friendly direction.
plus, why in the hell do we not have a good offline superhero open world game like fallout/tes? no, infamous doesnt count, you cant choose your avatar or power theme beyond fire/ice/lighting. obsidian, get on it!
actually, saints row 3 was pretty close to there already, just add travel powers and rejig the weapons to be powers, and make the story heroic rather than gonzo evil. some modders want to tackle a total conversion?
You say that as if its difficult to do. People do it all the time, flash a couple million in the face of some exec, buyout and proceed to push and shape the stock into what they see as the most profitable or "better". There's a whole different side to the whole stock thing, but, it'd be too long to put up on a forum.
And how many average people in this economy can even manage to pull together a couple million dollars? Get serious. It's not "easy" at all.
The thing is that Riot hit an untapped MOBA market and not an oversaturated MMORPG market. They hit a lucrative esport niche, and with it came a license to print money. If superhero MMOs were that lucrative, then CO would have a full dev staff, City of Heroes would still be with us, and DCUO wouldn't have gone full tilt to the console crowd.
What we're seeing here isn't the problem, we're only seeing the symptoms. The problem is far more systematic and goes well beyond Cryptic and PWE.
Is this the old, tired "superhero niche market" argument? If superheroes were so "niche" then how did this become such a huge box office grossing movie?
And seriously, CoH wasn't killed because it was a "failure," it was killed because that's what NCSoft does. It was still turning a profit from the admission of all parties involved and lack of revenue was never cited by NCSoft as the reason it was axed. "Realignment of company focus" was, whatever that means (oh right, Boobs & Sluts).
No, this is very much a PW/Cryptic problem, as they are not pouring any meaningful development into this game and won't even COMMUNICATE with us. Seriously, how many posts from a developer have you seen on this board? I can only count them on one hand.
Is this the old, tired "superhero niche market" argument? If superheroes were so "niche" then how did this become such a huge box office grossing movie?
And seriously, CoH wasn't killed because it was a "failure," it was killed because that's what NCSoft does. It was still turning a profit from the admission of all parties involved and lack of revenue was never cited by NCSoft as the reason it was axed. "Realignment of company focus" was, whatever that means (oh right, Boobs & Sluts).
And if The Avengers proved that superheroic MMOs aren't a niche, then why wasn't City of Heroes mounting a comeback in revenue growth after it went F2P? Why didn't CO bust out like gangbusters and why did Cryptic yank its staff for STO and Neverwinter? Why did DCUO go free to play?
Whether CoX was profitable isn't the story. It was stuck at $10 mil or so in revenue per year in a company that sold 15% of its stock for over $600 million. Going F2P stopped the bleeding but didn't grow any new revenues either. That's why it got NCSofted without a second thought.
No, this is very much a PW/Cryptic problem, as they are not pouring any meaningful development into this game and won't even COMMUNICATE with us.
And why should they put any meaningful development into the game if they're not expecting any meaningful money back from it? Corporate execs and bean counters aren't mustache-twirling villains determined to sink the superhero MMO market. Follow the money. It's not there.
Under PW we have had 2 comic series only (and one of those was probably almost finished before PW took over)
We have had no permanent story content now in 14 months since whiteout in nov 2011.
I did say "that much more". we had more, but lets compare co under atari to ..say, city of heroes first 4 issues(3 new zones, lots of costume pieces, keldians, raised level cap, epic power poos). about similar time frame. neither atari nor pwi have been especially impressive, "eastern" or not. plus, pwi got cryptic at their financial nadir, atari PUT cryptic in their financial nadir. I have no love for how pwi is runnign things, I make no secret that compared to how coh ran(outside of maybe the lull between issues 6-9) o is failing miserably, but jsut saying its those durn Asianszez fault is going some extremely nonconstructive places.
And if The Avengers proved that superheroic MMOs aren't a niche, then why wasn't City of Heroes mounting a comeback in revenue growth after it went F2P? Why didn't CO bust out like gangbusters and why did Cryptic yank its staff for STO and Neverwinter? Why did DCUO go free to play?
Whether CoX was profitable isn't the story. It was stuck at $10 mil or so in revenue per year in a company that sold 15% of its stock for over $600 million. Going F2P stopped the bleeding but didn't grow any new revenues either. That's why it got NCSofted without a second thought.
And why should they put any meaningful development into the game if they're not expecting any meaningful money back from it? Corporate execs and bean counters aren't mustache-twirling villains determined to sink the superhero MMO market. Follow the money. It's not there.
FtP is where the MMO market itself is going, not just Super hero games.
And if The Avengers proved that superheroic MMOs aren't a niche, then why wasn't City of Heroes mounting a comeback in revenue growth after it went F2P? Why didn't CO bust out like gangbusters and why did Cryptic yank its staff for STO and Neverwinter? Why did DCUO go free to play?
By that logic, all MMOs overall are failing period, because if you haven't noticed... EVERYTHING is F2P these days. It's a tough economy right now. Micro-transactions bring in the dough. Bottom line, while revenue wasn't growing, you don't know how many people were actually playing, because F2P doesn't guarantee that everyone is paying anything.
Whether CoX was profitable isn't the story. It was stuck at $10 mil or so in revenue per year in a company that sold 15% of its stock for over $600 million. Going F2P stopped the bleeding but didn't grow any new revenues either. That's why it got NCSofted without a second thought.
Profit is profit. It got NCSofted because it was NCSoft. They kill games. It's what they do.
And why should they put any meaningful development into the game if they're not expecting any meaningful money back from it? Corporate execs and bean counters aren't mustache-twirling villains determined to sink the superhero MMO market. Follow the money. It's not there.
You have to INVEST into a product first in order to get money back from it. If you don't put anything into it, your product fails. It's simple business science. As has been pointed out, this game still pretty much only has what it launched with, which shows that Cryptic is not putting anything into it.
I am totally addicted to CO. I love the game. A super hero genre MMO is the only one that I will support with my money.
I was a monthly subscriber since launch. I bought almost every costume pack, several additional character slots, several additional costume slots, and a couple of name change tokens. I even bought 10 Halloween grab bags in 2011.
I was even willing to pay for Vibora Bay had CO made that a paid expansion.
I have not and will not buy a Cosmic Key.
I let my subscription lapse in November. I figure I've paid enough. I'll just coast for right now. I am quite happy leveling new silver characters.
If new playable content (i.e. a new zone, mission arc, adventure pack/comic series) is released I will probably resub. I miss my Gold characters.
"
This is me too. I understand both the love of the game and the disappointment. Love me some COs!!! Supported it since Beta with a subscription and C-store purchases. Even though I could afford an LTS, I kept subscribing because I wanted to invest in the game. I ended up paying more in subscription fees than if I would have if I had purchased the LTS. That was ok with me because I loved the game and was investing in its future. Once I started checking the STO maintenance posts late last year, I really saw where the company focus was. It is not on CO, sadly. Or very very little of it is on CO. I do keep checking in to see what's happening with Champions. And the answer is and has been "a little" for quite a while now.
I did say "that much more". we had more, but lets compare co under atari to ..say, city of heroes first 4 issues(3 new zones, lots of costume pieces, keldians, raised level cap, epic power poos). about similar time frame. neither atari nor pwi have been especially impressive, "eastern" or not. plus, pwi got cryptic at their financial nadir, atari PUT cryptic in their financial nadir. I have no love for how pwi is runnign things, I make no secret that compared to how coh ran(outside of maybe the lull between issues 6-9) o is failing miserably, but jsut saying its those durn Asianszez fault is going some extremely nonconstructive places.
Oh yeah i agree there, CoX LAUNCHED with more content than CO still has now. It had lots of permenent story content added for free, not to mention paid expansions as big as the original game. While in 3.5 years CO has had 1 zone and 5 long (admitedly good) story arcs.
I have no complaint with the permenant story content we have, or have had added. Just there wasnt much at launch and hardly any has been added since, and NONE in the last 14 months (since whiteout)
Comments
The thing is that Riot hit an untapped MOBA market and not an oversaturated MMORPG market. They hit a lucrative esport niche, and with it came a license to print money. If superhero MMOs were that lucrative, then CO would have a full dev staff, City of Heroes would still be with us, and DCUO wouldn't have gone full tilt to the console crowd.
What we're seeing here isn't the problem, we're only seeing the symptoms. The problem is far more systematic and goes well beyond Cryptic and PWE.
so it isnt that eastern companies are to blame, its that large companies make financial decisions that can leave fans of niche genres in the cold...and that we need to demand that mmos evolve in a more consumer friendly direction.
plus, why in the hell do we not have a good offline superhero open world game like fallout/tes? no, infamous doesnt count, you cant choose your avatar or power theme beyond fire/ice/lighting. obsidian, get on it!
actually, saints row 3 was pretty close to there already, just add travel powers and rejig the weapons to be powers, and make the story heroic rather than gonzo evil. some modders want to tackle a total conversion?
We had more story content under atari.
Under atari we got 1 zone and 3 adventure packs.
Under PW we have had 2 comic series only (and one of those was probably almost finished before PW took over)
We have had no permenent story content now in 14 months since whiteout in nov 2011.
I can't believe I miss Atari...bleh.
And how many average people in this economy can even manage to pull together a couple million dollars? Get serious. It's not "easy" at all.
Is this the old, tired "superhero niche market" argument? If superheroes were so "niche" then how did this become such a huge box office grossing movie?
And seriously, CoH wasn't killed because it was a "failure," it was killed because that's what NCSoft does. It was still turning a profit from the admission of all parties involved and lack of revenue was never cited by NCSoft as the reason it was axed. "Realignment of company focus" was, whatever that means (oh right, Boobs & Sluts).
No, this is very much a PW/Cryptic problem, as they are not pouring any meaningful development into this game and won't even COMMUNICATE with us. Seriously, how many posts from a developer have you seen on this board? I can only count them on one hand.
And if The Avengers proved that superheroic MMOs aren't a niche, then why wasn't City of Heroes mounting a comeback in revenue growth after it went F2P? Why didn't CO bust out like gangbusters and why did Cryptic yank its staff for STO and Neverwinter? Why did DCUO go free to play?
Whether CoX was profitable isn't the story. It was stuck at $10 mil or so in revenue per year in a company that sold 15% of its stock for over $600 million. Going F2P stopped the bleeding but didn't grow any new revenues either. That's why it got NCSofted without a second thought.
And why should they put any meaningful development into the game if they're not expecting any meaningful money back from it? Corporate execs and bean counters aren't mustache-twirling villains determined to sink the superhero MMO market. Follow the money. It's not there.
FtP is where the MMO market itself is going, not just Super hero games.
By that logic, all MMOs overall are failing period, because if you haven't noticed... EVERYTHING is F2P these days. It's a tough economy right now. Micro-transactions bring in the dough. Bottom line, while revenue wasn't growing, you don't know how many people were actually playing, because F2P doesn't guarantee that everyone is paying anything.
Profit is profit. It got NCSofted because it was NCSoft. They kill games. It's what they do.
You have to INVEST into a product first in order to get money back from it. If you don't put anything into it, your product fails. It's simple business science. As has been pointed out, this game still pretty much only has what it launched with, which shows that Cryptic is not putting anything into it.
This is me too. I understand both the love of the game and the disappointment. Love me some COs!!! Supported it since Beta with a subscription and C-store purchases. Even though I could afford an LTS, I kept subscribing because I wanted to invest in the game. I ended up paying more in subscription fees than if I would have if I had purchased the LTS. That was ok with me because I loved the game and was investing in its future. Once I started checking the STO maintenance posts late last year, I really saw where the company focus was. It is not on CO, sadly. Or very very little of it is on CO. I do keep checking in to see what's happening with Champions. And the answer is and has been "a little" for quite a while now.
Forum for cool superhero game... must discuss business.
Paula Deen
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
Oh yeah i agree there, CoX LAUNCHED with more content than CO still has now. It had lots of permenent story content added for free, not to mention paid expansions as big as the original game. While in 3.5 years CO has had 1 zone and 5 long (admitedly good) story arcs.
I have no complaint with the permenant story content we have, or have had added. Just there wasnt much at launch and hardly any has been added since, and NONE in the last 14 months (since whiteout)
My bad, slow Friday here. Just tryin' to help explain why things are the way they are.