Im not calling you out here, but i would truly like to know where the facts are proving the game was on it's deathbed and needed F2P to "save" it.
The news stories about how Atari was going bankrupt detailed a significant portion of how the game was in dire straits. Now that is more complex than just STO itself, as Atari had other properties and was not managing itself all that great, the overall notion that Star Trek Online couldn't continue with Atari was well established by those reports and news stories.
Then there was PWE, and the "leaked" shareholders documentation that showed a very specific plan for going Free to Play.
In other words, there's already a lot of documentation and "facts" out there demonstrating that going to this model was the plan devised to get the game in the black. And this many years later, the results seem to suggest that the plan worked.
Atari was going under. STO was losing money. This is all factually reported. PWE bought Cryptic to leverage the Star Trek MMO and the upcoming Neverwinter game to make profits with their already successful Free to Play model, and to give them a foothold in the western market. This was both reported and shown in a shareholder's meeting public document.
Of all the debates and arguments that crop up on these forums, this is one that seems harder to push a conspiracy theory about since it's got a lot of earnings reports and corporate documents to back it up and map out the narrative. When Cryptic suggests F2P kept the game alive, they're pretty much highlighting exactly how things went with the transition from Atari to PWE.
Im not calling you out here, but i would truly like to know where the facts are proving the game was on it's deathbed and needed F2P to "save" it.
The news stories about how Atari was going bankrupt detailed a significant portion of how the game was in dire straits. Now that is more complex than just STO itself, as Atari had other properties and was not managing itself all that great, the overall notion that Star Trek Online couldn't continue with Atari was well established by those reports and news stories.
Then there was PWE, and the "leaked" shareholders documentation that showed a very specific plan for going Free to Play.
In other words, there's already a lot of documentation and "facts" out there demonstrating that going to this model was the plan devised to get the game in the black. And this many years later, the results seem to suggest that the plan worked.
Atari was going under. STO was losing money. This is all factually reported. PWE bought Cryptic to leverage the Star Trek MMO and the upcoming Neverwinter game to make profits with their already successful Free to Play model, and to give them a foothold in the western market. This was both reported and shown in a shareholder's meeting public document.
Of all the debates and arguments that crop up on these forums, this is one that seems harder to push a conspiracy theory about since it's got a lot of earnings reports and corporate documents to back it up and map out the narrative. When Cryptic suggests F2P kept the game alive, they're pretty much highlighting exactly how things went with the transition from Atari to PWE.
So PWE decided to take it f2p, because thats what PWE does, thats why it went f2p, if it "saved" it it was a side effect, and a positive one.
Trekkies saved STO Snoggy, without players spending money, it's all over anyway.
It is the games players who deserve the credit for "Saving" STO, nobody else.
Im not calling you out here, but i would truly like to know where the facts are proving the game was on it's deathbed and needed F2P to "save" it.
The news stories about how Atari was going bankrupt detailed a significant portion of how the game was in dire straits. Now that is more complex than just STO itself, as Atari had other properties and was not managing itself all that great, the overall notion that Star Trek Online couldn't continue with Atari was well established by those reports and news stories.
Then there was PWE, and the "leaked" shareholders documentation that showed a very specific plan for going Free to Play.
In other words, there's already a lot of documentation and "facts" out there demonstrating that going to this model was the plan devised to get the game in the black. And this many years later, the results seem to suggest that the plan worked.
Atari was going under. STO was losing money. This is all factually reported. PWE bought Cryptic to leverage the Star Trek MMO and the upcoming Neverwinter game to make profits with their already successful Free to Play model, and to give them a foothold in the western market. This was both reported and shown in a shareholder's meeting public document.
Of all the debates and arguments that crop up on these forums, this is one that seems harder to push a conspiracy theory about since it's got a lot of earnings reports and corporate documents to back it up and map out the narrative. When Cryptic suggests F2P kept the game alive, they're pretty much highlighting exactly how things went with the transition from Atari to PWE.
So PWE decided to take it f2p, because thats what PWE does, thats why it went f2p, if it "saved" it it was a side effect, and a positive one.
Trekkies saved STO Snoggy, without players spending money, it's all over anyway.
PWE buying it from Atari in the first place was the "saving" part. PWE bought it to go F2P. They're linked. Going F2P was a part of the game's evolution as well as the MMO genre. I'm not sure why you're trying to obscure this connection. But considering how much money I spent on Rift, Wildstar, Everquest, Everquest 2, and Lord of the Rings Online in subscription fees in 2014 to today, I think you might not be giving the F2P transition its proper respect.
Im not calling you out here, but i would truly like to know where the facts are proving the game was on it's deathbed and needed F2P to "save" it.
The news stories about how Atari was going bankrupt detailed a significant portion of how the game was in dire straits. Now that is more complex than just STO itself, as Atari had other properties and was not managing itself all that great, the overall notion that Star Trek Online couldn't continue with Atari was well established by those reports and news stories.
Then there was PWE, and the "leaked" shareholders documentation that showed a very specific plan for going Free to Play.
In other words, there's already a lot of documentation and "facts" out there demonstrating that going to this model was the plan devised to get the game in the black. And this many years later, the results seem to suggest that the plan worked.
Atari was going under. STO was losing money. This is all factually reported. PWE bought Cryptic to leverage the Star Trek MMO and the upcoming Neverwinter game to make profits with their already successful Free to Play model, and to give them a foothold in the western market. This was both reported and shown in a shareholder's meeting public document.
Of all the debates and arguments that crop up on these forums, this is one that seems harder to push a conspiracy theory about since it's got a lot of earnings reports and corporate documents to back it up and map out the narrative. When Cryptic suggests F2P kept the game alive, they're pretty much highlighting exactly how things went with the transition from Atari to PWE.
So PWE decided to take it f2p, because thats what PWE does, thats why it went f2p, if it "saved" it it was a side effect, and a positive one.
Trekkies saved STO Snoggy, without players spending money, it's all over anyway.
PWE buying it from Atari in the first place was the "saving" part. PWE bought it to go F2P. They're linked. Going F2P was a part of the game's evolution as well as the MMO genre. I'm not sure why you're trying to obscure this connection. But considering how much money I spent on Rift, Wildstar, Everquest, Everquest 2, and Lord of the Rings Online in subscription fees in 2014 to today, I think you might not be giving the F2P transition its proper respect.
Your talking bussiness, i get it, as always your informed.
Bussiness without profit is dead, players saved the game nobody else.
Bussiness without profit is dead, players saved the game nobody else.
It's a symbiotic relationship, which means it's a two way street. The players won't (or can't) play the game if the development company mismanages the business side of things, because then development suffers.
STO is living proof of that. We saw what development was like under Atari and how it changed under PWE and the difference is immeasurable.
Yes, players saved the game by buying the stuff F2P offered. But like snoggy said, if there hadn't been a good plan behind the transition, players wouldn't have supported the game the way they did. You have to give the developers and the company they work for some credit for the turnaround.
The implied idea that the game only survives because Trekkies are a pack of fools who'll buy anything is a false view of things. Plenty of people have left this game over the years for various reasons and if there wasn't a solid plan to bring more people in than the ones who left, or to bring back former players, the game would have tanked by now. It's a well established fact in MMO-land that players don't buy stuff if they're not playing, and that's doubly true for F2P.
The fact that it seems to be going as strong, if not stronger, than ever suggests that they're doing something right.
Im not calling you out here, but i would truly like to know where the facts are proving the game was on it's deathbed and needed F2P to "save" it.
The news stories about how Atari was going bankrupt detailed a significant portion of how the game was in dire straits. Now that is more complex than just STO itself, as Atari had other properties and was not managing itself all that great, the overall notion that Star Trek Online couldn't continue with Atari was well established by those reports and news stories.
Then there was PWE, and the "leaked" shareholders documentation that showed a very specific plan for going Free to Play.
In other words, there's already a lot of documentation and "facts" out there demonstrating that going to this model was the plan devised to get the game in the black. And this many years later, the results seem to suggest that the plan worked.
Atari was going under. STO was losing money. This is all factually reported. PWE bought Cryptic to leverage the Star Trek MMO and the upcoming Neverwinter game to make profits with their already successful Free to Play model, and to give them a foothold in the western market. This was both reported and shown in a shareholder's meeting public document.
Of all the debates and arguments that crop up on these forums, this is one that seems harder to push a conspiracy theory about since it's got a lot of earnings reports and corporate documents to back it up and map out the narrative. When Cryptic suggests F2P kept the game alive, they're pretty much highlighting exactly how things went with the transition from Atari to PWE.
So PWE decided to take it f2p, because thats what PWE does, thats why it went f2p, if it "saved" it it was a side effect, and a positive one.
Trekkies saved STO Snoggy, without players spending money, it's all over anyway.
PWE buying it from Atari in the first place was the "saving" part. PWE bought it to go F2P. They're linked. Going F2P was a part of the game's evolution as well as the MMO genre. I'm not sure why you're trying to obscure this connection. But considering how much money I spent on Rift, Wildstar, Everquest, Everquest 2, and Lord of the Rings Online in subscription fees in 2014 to today, I think you might not be giving the F2P transition its proper respect.
Your talking bussiness, i get it, as always your informed.
Bussiness without profit is dead, players saved the game nobody else.
And stop typing faster than i do lol.
Ah, ok. Yeah, I can see what you're saying. And the customers are the core element of what keeps the game going. No arguments there
Bussiness without profit is dead, players saved the game nobody else.
It's a symbiotic relationship, which means it's a two way street. The players won't (or can't) play the game if the development company mismanages the business side of things, because then development suffers.
STO is living proof of that. We saw what development was like under Atari and how it changed under PWE and the difference is immeasurable.
Yes, players saved the game by buying the stuff F2P offered. But like snoggy said, if there hadn't been a good plan behind the transition, players wouldn't have supported the game the way they did. You have to give the developers and the company they work for some credit for the turnaround.
The implied idea that the game only survives because Trekkies are a pack of fools who'll buy anything is a false view of things. Plenty of people have left this game over the years for various reasons and if there wasn't a solid plan to bring more people in than the ones who left, or to bring back former players, the game would have tanked by now. It's a well established fact in MMO-land that players don't buy stuff if they're not playing, and that's doubly true for F2P.
The fact that it seems to be going as strong, if not stronger, than ever suggests that they're doing something right.
Agreed. If it was really as simple as fans spending money, then STO would have been profitable as a P2P game.
Bussiness without profit is dead, players saved the game nobody else.
It's a symbiotic relationship, which means it's a two way street. The players won't (or can't) play the game if the development company mismanages the business side of things, because then development suffers.
STO is living proof of that. We saw what development was like under Atari and how it changed under PWE and the difference is immeasurable.
Yes, players saved the game by buying the stuff F2P offered. But like snoggy said, if there hadn't been a good plan behind the transition, players wouldn't have supported the game the way they did. You have to give the developers and the company they work for some credit for the turnaround.
The implied idea that the game only survives because Trekkies are a pack of fools who'll buy anything is a false view of things. Plenty of people have left this game over the years for various reasons and if there wasn't a solid plan to bring more people in than the ones who left, or to bring back former players, the game would have tanked by now. It's a well established fact in MMO-land that players don't buy stuff if they're not playing, and that's doubly true for F2P.
The fact that it seems to be going as strong, if not stronger, than ever suggests that they're doing something right.
There is no two way street if players dont spend money on the game, symbolic or otherwise.
If the players decide tomorrow to quit spending anything, over.
"Maintenance" suffers in this game because it's the only Trek game in town, if it wasn't it'd be a different story.
Trekkies arent fools for spending money on the game, PWE/Cryptic are for selling them buggy content, Trekkies have nowhere else to go for "Trek".
"Maintenance" suffers in this game because it's the only Trek game in town, if it wasn't it'd be a different story.
Trekkies arent fools for spending money on the game, PWE/Cryptic are for selling them buggy content, Trekkies have nowhere else to go for "Trek".
This fact is just ignored with regularity.
A. It's not the only Trek game.
B. As for existence of other games radically improving the quality of this one - true story, bro.
I consider all this JJ Trek introduction a huge money grab. As a business they are compelled to, like moths to a flame.
Like I've said for years... once you see an OP playable Borg Cube you know STO is in desperate straits and looking for cash! These JJships smell a bit like that. They just got shoehorned in, out of nowhere! On an 'expansion' that consists of 6 missions.
I consider all this JJ Trek introduction a huge money grab. As a business they are compelled to, like moths to a flame.
Like I've said for years... once you see an OP playable Borg Cube you know STO is in desperate straits and looking for cash! These JJships smell a bit like that. They just got shoehorned in, out of nowhere! On an 'expansion' that consists of 6 missions.
Being added to the game in the same month Star Trek Beyond opens doesn't really seem like "out of nowhere" to me. Seems far more like it was timed to maximize visibility with the new movie debut. Like a very planned marketing promotion.
So many just don't realize that without the money making, the game wouldn't likely be here.
They want everything handed to them for free, when in fact a lot is, like the expansion.
Nah. Cryptic is making money on this expansion, hand over fist, for sure. But ppl have no valid reason to complain, really. All y'all wanted your T6 Connie, no?! Now pay thru your nose to get one, and shut up! (No sarcasm intended)
They added the JJ stuff for that group of fans. I don't like JJ stuff, but you need something for all fans. So far the AOY tutorial has been really good! Been a while since I had this much fun.
Maybe not the JJ stuff but that New Romulan Carrier is OP. That is a good design.
I'm not a fan of it, but it's still pretty solid. I'm really feeling the need for that D4x on my Orion though.
Im not calling you out here, but i would truly like to know where the facts are proving the game was on it's deathbed and needed F2P to "save" it.
The news stories about how Atari was going bankrupt detailed a significant portion of how the game was in dire straits. Now that is more complex than just STO itself, as Atari had other properties and was not managing itself all that great, the overall notion that Star Trek Online couldn't continue with Atari was well established by those reports and news stories.
Then there was PWE, and the "leaked" shareholders documentation that showed a very specific plan for going Free to Play.
In other words, there's already a lot of documentation and "facts" out there demonstrating that going to this model was the plan devised to get the game in the black. And this many years later, the results seem to suggest that the plan worked.
Atari was going under. STO was losing money. This is all factually reported. PWE bought Cryptic to leverage the Star Trek MMO and the upcoming Neverwinter game to make profits with their already successful Free to Play model, and to give them a foothold in the western market. This was both reported and shown in a shareholder's meeting public document.
Of all the debates and arguments that crop up on these forums, this is one that seems harder to push a conspiracy theory about since it's got a lot of earnings reports and corporate documents to back it up and map out the narrative. When Cryptic suggests F2P kept the game alive, they're pretty much highlighting exactly how things went with the transition from Atari to PWE.
Kudos on a well-balanced post! (So rare here!) It went down the way you say, and I was there to bear witness (why, barely, that is: I joined when STO was about to transition).
It's a niche f2p MMO with a limited playerbase. I very much doubt that they have peak daily online above 10-20k on average and a number of unique user logins per month above 200-300k (including those, who log in less 5 times per month).
A majority of this narrow target audience or either not paying at all or paying less than 5$ per month (your average consumer wastes more on alcohol/cigarettes/cinema and other so called "real life" (tm) entertainments). (Thus transferring to p2p model about which some like to whine would kill it almost instantly).
In such conditions the lack of incentive for considerable expenses will seriously diminish the game's cash flow. And the limited offer of desirable items through lockboxes and lobi store is exactly the thing, which provides such incentive.
I do wonder the actual number of monthly paid subscriptions, not counting LTS' at all. Or if the number of LTS' outnumber the monthly subs. WhiIe, personally, I feel this game is beyond p2p in terms of monthly subscriptions, I know there are those who still do it, though aside from loyalty or supporting reasons, I can't see why. I don't think enhancing the paid subscription benefits would be enough to support the game alone, the better paid subscription would be more enticing towards people coming in, more so with the new comers from both consoles.
I've read the last two sentences a few times, but I'm not sure if you're saying the lockboxes are a plus or negative to the cash flow in current conditions.
In my opinion, this expansion has felt a little like a money grab. £99 for a back full of ships you can't actually use until you leave the 23rd century and yet more Lockboxes.
Zen costs £9/1000z. For 10 Keys at 10% off it's about 500zen. To get a Constitution or enough Lobi in to buy the uniforms or big bad Into Darkness ship you'd be looking at spending over £50 on zen given the percentage rate of a ship spawning and low lobi count.
The market in Sto is over-saturated in terms of currency. Latinum for pointless trophies, Dilithium, Lobi, EC's.
Instead of binning them all save Dilithium and Latinum. Mine Dilithium, Trade commodities, earn Latinum, spend it in a store thats a merger of the Dil/Lobi Stores. Have Lat be traded for Zen at a rate of 1000 Lat per 500 Zen.
to me that is far more consumer friendly. I'm fully aware this is a F2P game but there is a difference between sourcing income and milking.
Comments
The news stories about how Atari was going bankrupt detailed a significant portion of how the game was in dire straits. Now that is more complex than just STO itself, as Atari had other properties and was not managing itself all that great, the overall notion that Star Trek Online couldn't continue with Atari was well established by those reports and news stories.
Then there was PWE, and the "leaked" shareholders documentation that showed a very specific plan for going Free to Play.
In other words, there's already a lot of documentation and "facts" out there demonstrating that going to this model was the plan devised to get the game in the black. And this many years later, the results seem to suggest that the plan worked.
Atari was going under. STO was losing money. This is all factually reported. PWE bought Cryptic to leverage the Star Trek MMO and the upcoming Neverwinter game to make profits with their already successful Free to Play model, and to give them a foothold in the western market. This was both reported and shown in a shareholder's meeting public document.
Of all the debates and arguments that crop up on these forums, this is one that seems harder to push a conspiracy theory about since it's got a lot of earnings reports and corporate documents to back it up and map out the narrative. When Cryptic suggests F2P kept the game alive, they're pretty much highlighting exactly how things went with the transition from Atari to PWE.
So PWE decided to take it f2p, because thats what PWE does, thats why it went f2p, if it "saved" it it was a side effect, and a positive one.
Trekkies saved STO Snoggy, without players spending money, it's all over anyway.
It is the games players who deserve the credit for "Saving" STO, nobody else.
PWE buying it from Atari in the first place was the "saving" part. PWE bought it to go F2P. They're linked. Going F2P was a part of the game's evolution as well as the MMO genre. I'm not sure why you're trying to obscure this connection. But considering how much money I spent on Rift, Wildstar, Everquest, Everquest 2, and Lord of the Rings Online in subscription fees in 2014 to today, I think you might not be giving the F2P transition its proper respect.
Your talking bussiness, i get it, as always your informed.
Bussiness without profit is dead, players saved the game nobody else.
And stop typing faster than i do lol.
It's a symbiotic relationship, which means it's a two way street. The players won't (or can't) play the game if the development company mismanages the business side of things, because then development suffers.
STO is living proof of that. We saw what development was like under Atari and how it changed under PWE and the difference is immeasurable.
Yes, players saved the game by buying the stuff F2P offered. But like snoggy said, if there hadn't been a good plan behind the transition, players wouldn't have supported the game the way they did. You have to give the developers and the company they work for some credit for the turnaround.
The implied idea that the game only survives because Trekkies are a pack of fools who'll buy anything is a false view of things. Plenty of people have left this game over the years for various reasons and if there wasn't a solid plan to bring more people in than the ones who left, or to bring back former players, the game would have tanked by now. It's a well established fact in MMO-land that players don't buy stuff if they're not playing, and that's doubly true for F2P.
The fact that it seems to be going as strong, if not stronger, than ever suggests that they're doing something right.
Ah, ok. Yeah, I can see what you're saying. And the customers are the core element of what keeps the game going. No arguments there
I'll work on typing slower!
My character Tsin'xing
There is no two way street if players dont spend money on the game, symbolic or otherwise.
If the players decide tomorrow to quit spending anything, over.
"Maintenance" suffers in this game because it's the only Trek game in town, if it wasn't it'd be a different story.
Trekkies arent fools for spending money on the game, PWE/Cryptic are for selling them buggy content, Trekkies have nowhere else to go for "Trek".
This fact is just ignored with regularity.
original join date 2010
Member: Team Trekyards. Visit Trekyards today!
B. As for existence of other games radically improving the quality of this one - true story, bro.
I'll see your Sharknado, and raise you one Sharktopus...
http://c.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/cocreate/imagecache/slideshow_large/slideshow/2013/08/1683639-slide-s-5-from-crab-monsters-to-sharktopus-what-schlock-king-roger-corman-can-teach-us-about-art.jpg
Like I've said for years... once you see an OP playable Borg Cube you know STO is in desperate straits and looking for cash! These JJships smell a bit like that. They just got shoehorned in, out of nowhere! On an 'expansion' that consists of 6 missions.
Being added to the game in the same month Star Trek Beyond opens doesn't really seem like "out of nowhere" to me. Seems far more like it was timed to maximize visibility with the new movie debut. Like a very planned marketing promotion.
I suddenly feel like watching Finding Nemo again.
Nah. Cryptic is making money on this expansion, hand over fist, for sure. But ppl have no valid reason to complain, really. All y'all wanted your T6 Connie, no?! Now pay thru your nose to get one, and shut up! (No sarcasm intended)
That trip to taurus II was epic win.
So... basically you're just here to nitpick, troll, and tell people they said things that were never actually said?
I thought the Kelvin connie was T6?
the cannibal tribble was at least useful though, no?
I'm not a fan of it, but it's still pretty solid. I'm really feeling the need for that D4x on my Orion though.
It is. It's T6 and even got NCC-1701 on the hull. I say that makes it as much a T6 Connie as we'll ever see.
Not sure about sharks, but this games' whales sure will have a field day with it.
Kudos on a well-balanced post! (So rare here!) It went down the way you say, and I was there to bear witness (why, barely, that is: I joined when STO was about to transition).
I do wonder the actual number of monthly paid subscriptions, not counting LTS' at all. Or if the number of LTS' outnumber the monthly subs. WhiIe, personally, I feel this game is beyond p2p in terms of monthly subscriptions, I know there are those who still do it, though aside from loyalty or supporting reasons, I can't see why. I don't think enhancing the paid subscription benefits would be enough to support the game alone, the better paid subscription would be more enticing towards people coming in, more so with the new comers from both consoles.
I've read the last two sentences a few times, but I'm not sure if you're saying the lockboxes are a plus or negative to the cash flow in current conditions.
Landshark for the win!
Zen costs £9/1000z. For 10 Keys at 10% off it's about 500zen. To get a Constitution or enough Lobi in to buy the uniforms or big bad Into Darkness ship you'd be looking at spending over £50 on zen given the percentage rate of a ship spawning and low lobi count.
The market in Sto is over-saturated in terms of currency. Latinum for pointless trophies, Dilithium, Lobi, EC's.
Instead of binning them all save Dilithium and Latinum. Mine Dilithium, Trade commodities, earn Latinum, spend it in a store thats a merger of the Dil/Lobi Stores. Have Lat be traded for Zen at a rate of 1000 Lat per 500 Zen.
to me that is far more consumer friendly. I'm fully aware this is a F2P game but there is a difference between sourcing income and milking.
Same mission zone as the lazer T-rex's, yeah?