It has less to do with money and more to do with will and priorities, I think. Dan likes to brag that the team is ~40 now, but that hasn't translated into much more non-grind/box content. Fleshing out the KDF simply isn't a priority, or they'd do it.
PWE has the money they could do it if they wanted to.
But hiring a bunch of people to make an expansion or the like, whatever the source of money is not trivial, you have to train them up in your studios way of doing things, and then hope they don't wreck the place when it's done. And the bad press they could get from a failed kickstarter would be a disaster.
If they have 40 people then they're burning through 450-500k a month, which is probably up around million dollars a year. The amount of money they'd need in a kickstarter could be a lot, and they might not get it.
Don't get me wrong, kickstarter has it's place, it's a great way to take an idea, pitch it to the public, take your pledges back to the bank and ask for even more money, but trying to do development on kickstarter funds is risky for a running product. If they can't get it done it's going to create tremendous bad press that they 'stole peoples money' or the like, and they don't really want to play with fire tempting fate on a CBS licence or even having people stop playing the game entirely.
If games based on a story no one has even heard of before can do this, why cant STO?
Do I detect a rather youthful poster in that you hadn't ever heard of or experienced the Wing Commander stories/games/movie?
Star Citizen is based in the Wing Commander / Privateer "universe". Chris Roberts did an excellent job with the Wing Commander series starting around 1990. Wing Commander was followed by WC2, WC3 and WC4. There was also Privateer 1 and 2 along with another game based on the WC story. There was even a "Wing Commander" movie in which Mark Hamill (played Luke Skywalker character in Star Wars) acted as one of the main characters.
But, back to your point, Chris Roberts is trying to build a new game from scratch, not add content to an existing game that is already making money.
p.s. I think Star Citizen stands a chance of actually making it into reality. And will possibly be the kind of theme-park and sandbox hybrid type of space game that a lot of players have wished for in STO.
To OP...
You seriously think so many souls love Cryptic so much that it'd happen like in the case of Obsidian's project that collected a million and achieved the goal in first 24 hours?
We'll see if it gets money in the range of what's needed.
The big reasons are that they're scared of being embarrassed (or getting in trouble) if it fails and they don't want to make promises.
The way they're setup now, every dollar taken in belongs to PWE and a percentage of that goes to PWE investors. Their budget is what they get back. You can't do a Kickstarter very well under that model unless you have all the book keepers onboard.
It would most properly all be recorded as unearned service revenue and every penny would have to go back into enhanced service. And then if it enhances the value of the game, shareholder equity would increase and they'd have to pay everything they just made off of the Kickstarter out of their normal operating budget. So in that case, it only works in Cryptic's favor if it's a failure in attracting increased profits because then Klingon players get new content and Cryptic doesn't have to pay it all back out to PWE.
In short: it's how things should work and I think more companies will do this in the future. But to make it work with a publicly traded company is probably a nightmare because the Wall Street investor approach (and, indeed, standard accounting) doesn't know how to deal with earmarked capital contributions that are not for profit or the shareholders.
A privately held company is a different story and I think Cryptic might be in a dramatically different place if Kickstarter had been big before they sold to Atari.
Do I detect a rather youthful poster in that you hadn't ever heard of or experienced the Wing Commander stories/games/movie?
Star Citizen is based in the Wing Commander / Privateer "universe". Chris Roberts did an excellent job with the Wing Commander series starting around 1990. Wing Commander was followed by WC2, WC3 and WC4. There was also Privateer 1 and 2 along with another game based on the WC story. There was even a "Wing Commander" movie in which Mark Hamill (played Luke Skywalker character in Star Wars) acted as one of the main characters.
But, back to your point, Chris Roberts is trying to build a new game from scratch, not add content to an existing game that is already making money.
p.s. I think Star Citizen stands a chance of actually making it into reality. And will possibly be the kind of theme-park and sandbox hybrid type of space game that a lot of players have wished for in STO.
Mark Hamill played the lead character in the cutscene's of WC3 and 4, and Clive Owen did the cutscenes from Priv 2 with MANY other a-list stars. it would've made a GREAT movie, much better than the film with freddie Prinze jr.
Chris Roberts is a pioneer in gaming, he was one of the first to mainstream mission assignment based on previous missions outcomes, and I have HIGH hopes that Mr. Roberts will pioneer new concepts in MMO with his new venture. I've sent money to his startup and eagerly await the finished product.
If it takes 40+ people to turn out the TRIBBLE that seems to be the focus of STO's development noe, then there is a serious problem somewhere.
There's definitely a problem somewhere in there. I can't believe that 'it's too expensive' for Cryptic to make story/mission content when every other MMO manages it.
I used to have an Orion slave girl, then PWE 'perfected' her, now all I have is this lousy signature
It's not about the money, as has been suggested above. It is about what Perfect World wants out of STO that determines the priorities. Clearly, all PWE wants is a cash cow they can milk over and over and over again. The only stuff they care to add to the game is stuff driven by Zen purchases. either that or mindnumbing grindfests that find a way to incorporate some form of monetization that encourages Zen sales.
Actually growing the game is not their goal. If it was, then that is what they would be doing.
If it takes 40+ people to turn out the TRIBBLE that seems to be the focus of STO's development noe, then there is a serious problem somewhere.
Indeed.
If Cryptic would want to make STO a better game they could do so. All the lock boxes should have mad them rich already, but they didn't made anything better. The game is Cryptics cash cow for their nest big thing, nothing more.
There's definitely a problem somewhere in there. I can't believe that 'it's too expensive' for Cryptic to make story/mission content when every other MMO manages it.
Doing things professionally adds bureaucracy. They have like six versions of the game floating around on their work computers that have to be synched up. They have approvals and budgets for things like polycounts and mission assets.
Assuming equal skill/talent/training/discipline, forty people is not eight times as productive as five amateurs eating cheetos and drinking Mountain Dew in a living room, working on laptops. Polish costs. Organization costs. Approvals and compliance with legal issues and license issues and user system specs have costs.
It's not too expensive. It's just not profitable for them in this period of STO's existance, where microtransaction-driven revenue is king. They have declared that they will never charge for mission/story content, and it is one declaration I believe they were truly sincere about. If they will never charge for it, then it will never be profitable. And if it will never be profitable, it will never have much of a priority. And if it will never have much of a priority then it won't have much of a presence.
You know what the real irony is? That before F2P occurred, people swore up and down that if they charged for mission content, it would be the greed-straw that broke the camels back for them and they would quit. These same people are the ones who have screamed at the top of their virtual lungs that STO needs playable content. Yet they eschew the only method that would define it as something profitable for Cryptic to pursue.
I would rather pay $15 for mission arc content packs released as regularly as possible than waste my money on Zen that can only buy fluff, or be used purchase Dilithium so that I can shave a little off the mindless grind that seems to exist only to encourage people to spend money to shave a little off of.
I'm working on something I will post a little later to outlines something which I think would be a fair compromise on the issue. Keep an eye out for it...
$15 for Mission DLC sounds like a reasonable price if you think about other games like... uuh Mass Effect or whatever.
But this is STAR TREK ONLINE, our players pay $25 - $60 for a single STARSHIP (not counting the $200 LTA or LockBox Starships).
So... your $15 for a mission pack, that as Champions Online has shown them many would not even buy (Champions DID try this approach and stopped it), is just not a good enough Return of Investment for them.
Paying $50 for a Romulan Faction ...on DVD?
Not even that could beat another LockBox Ship or even another Odyssey Cruiser (and rumors are flying around that the Vesta Class will use the same $50 3 version price model as the Odyssey).
Comments
But hiring a bunch of people to make an expansion or the like, whatever the source of money is not trivial, you have to train them up in your studios way of doing things, and then hope they don't wreck the place when it's done. And the bad press they could get from a failed kickstarter would be a disaster.
If they have 40 people then they're burning through 450-500k a month, which is probably up around million dollars a year. The amount of money they'd need in a kickstarter could be a lot, and they might not get it.
Don't get me wrong, kickstarter has it's place, it's a great way to take an idea, pitch it to the public, take your pledges back to the bank and ask for even more money, but trying to do development on kickstarter funds is risky for a running product. If they can't get it done it's going to create tremendous bad press that they 'stole peoples money' or the like, and they don't really want to play with fire tempting fate on a CBS licence or even having people stop playing the game entirely.
Do I detect a rather youthful poster in that you hadn't ever heard of or experienced the Wing Commander stories/games/movie?
Star Citizen is based in the Wing Commander / Privateer "universe". Chris Roberts did an excellent job with the Wing Commander series starting around 1990. Wing Commander was followed by WC2, WC3 and WC4. There was also Privateer 1 and 2 along with another game based on the WC story. There was even a "Wing Commander" movie in which Mark Hamill (played Luke Skywalker character in Star Wars) acted as one of the main characters.
But, back to your point, Chris Roberts is trying to build a new game from scratch, not add content to an existing game that is already making money.
p.s. I think Star Citizen stands a chance of actually making it into reality. And will possibly be the kind of theme-park and sandbox hybrid type of space game that a lot of players have wished for in STO.
R.I.P
You seriously think so many souls love Cryptic so much that it'd happen like in the case of Obsidian's project that collected a million and achieved the goal in first 24 hours?
Riiiiiiiiight. Dream on.
The big reasons are that they're scared of being embarrassed (or getting in trouble) if it fails and they don't want to make promises.
The way they're setup now, every dollar taken in belongs to PWE and a percentage of that goes to PWE investors. Their budget is what they get back. You can't do a Kickstarter very well under that model unless you have all the book keepers onboard.
It would most properly all be recorded as unearned service revenue and every penny would have to go back into enhanced service. And then if it enhances the value of the game, shareholder equity would increase and they'd have to pay everything they just made off of the Kickstarter out of their normal operating budget. So in that case, it only works in Cryptic's favor if it's a failure in attracting increased profits because then Klingon players get new content and Cryptic doesn't have to pay it all back out to PWE.
In short: it's how things should work and I think more companies will do this in the future. But to make it work with a publicly traded company is probably a nightmare because the Wall Street investor approach (and, indeed, standard accounting) doesn't know how to deal with earmarked capital contributions that are not for profit or the shareholders.
A privately held company is a different story and I think Cryptic might be in a dramatically different place if Kickstarter had been big before they sold to Atari.
Mark Hamill played the lead character in the cutscene's of WC3 and 4, and Clive Owen did the cutscenes from Priv 2 with MANY other a-list stars. it would've made a GREAT movie, much better than the film with freddie Prinze jr.
Chris Roberts is a pioneer in gaming, he was one of the first to mainstream mission assignment based on previous missions outcomes, and I have HIGH hopes that Mr. Roberts will pioneer new concepts in MMO with his new venture. I've sent money to his startup and eagerly await the finished product.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
There's definitely a problem somewhere in there. I can't believe that 'it's too expensive' for Cryptic to make story/mission content when every other MMO manages it.
Indeed.
If Cryptic would want to make STO a better game they could do so. All the lock boxes should have mad them rich already, but they didn't made anything better. The game is Cryptics cash cow for their nest big thing, nothing more.
Doing things professionally adds bureaucracy. They have like six versions of the game floating around on their work computers that have to be synched up. They have approvals and budgets for things like polycounts and mission assets.
Assuming equal skill/talent/training/discipline, forty people is not eight times as productive as five amateurs eating cheetos and drinking Mountain Dew in a living room, working on laptops. Polish costs. Organization costs. Approvals and compliance with legal issues and license issues and user system specs have costs.
might have to do with the fact that this Chris Roberts is responsible for such small flopped and forgotten games like WING COMMANDER
//edit: oh that was already pointed out? ok don't mind me ;P
$15 for Mission DLC sounds like a reasonable price if you think about other games like... uuh Mass Effect or whatever.
But this is STAR TREK ONLINE, our players pay $25 - $60 for a single STARSHIP (not counting the $200 LTA or LockBox Starships).
So... your $15 for a mission pack, that as Champions Online has shown them many would not even buy (Champions DID try this approach and stopped it), is just not a good enough Return of Investment for them.
Paying $50 for a Romulan Faction ...on DVD?
Not even that could beat another LockBox Ship or even another Odyssey Cruiser (and rumors are flying around that the Vesta Class will use the same $50 3 version price model as the Odyssey).