EA Stockholder Meeting Discussion/ Future Video Game Crash Speculation
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It's not hard to under-perform when one is being compared* to the money-making abilities of WoW. SWTOR is not going to go under. It's going to do what so many other MMOs have done: it's going to drift for awhile, making a bit of money, until it starts eventually losing more and more subs and at some point it will go F2P, probably then making money hand over fist.Draech said:
Speaking of which, the whole going F2P thing as a sign of certain demise blows my mind. Going F2P has brought more than one game back from the brink into being pretty damn profitable.
*Edit: Or rather, expected to even begin to compete with...
This i actually find very interesting. Mainly for the reason that this anonymous Bioware Source seems to be pretty damn stupid for not realizing why the Fans didnt want them to make it like WoW. Because Wow already exists and we dont need two of those, which is also a Problem with the industry itself because everyone tried to copy that bloody game instead of trying to catch their own lightning in a bottle as it were. Its rather sad really.Dexter111 said:
Though it makes me wonder how exactly Bioware managed to still make WoW in Space when they "listened to the Fans", especially if said Fans said they didnt want it to be like WoW was anyways..odd really.
I don't think it will be a crash as big as the one involving Atari way back when but things need to change.
As someone said above, just because £40 is standard pricing doesn't mean people are willing to pay it for every game.
Of course companies are going to have losses. We, as gamers, aren't going to throw money at every single game that gets released.
When you have companies like EA and Acti that focus on that one big seller (CoD/Battlefield) and then release mundane shit throughout the year what do you expect?
As someone said above, just because £40 is standard pricing doesn't mean people are willing to pay it for every game.
Of course companies are going to have losses. We, as gamers, aren't going to throw money at every single game that gets released.
When you have companies like EA and Acti that focus on that one big seller (CoD/Battlefield) and then release mundane shit throughout the year what do you expect?
Woah, how about we stop with the condescension. I made a point of saying that "I think video games are officially 'too big to fail' now". A video game crash doesn't mean the disappearance of video games just like a housing market crash doesn't mean the end of all houses.Draech said:
This guy assumes that they're going to stay above 1 million subscribers, and that LucasArts is being nice about the division of profits.LetalisK said:
Firstly, George Lucas always comes out on top. Period. He and his companies have one of the most valuable IPs ever created and they are going to make sure they get paid plenty for anyone to use it. Secondly, SWTOR is not on track to keep 1 million subscribers, as per the latest subscription numbers. I believe they're at 1.3 million right now, and losing. You can tell they're losing people by the server activity over the past few months. Thirdly, he doesn't take into account marketing costs, which are not included in the development cost of the game. SWTOR was heavily marketed on TV, movies, E3, etc. I don't think SWTOR is going to be a moneymaker for EA.
I get what he's saying there. Yes, businesses do need to make money. But if that's the primary goal of these people, they could have picked a much safer industry to do it in. So there has to be passion there. When you hear about so many high turnover rates, developer closings, and grueling working conditions, it doesn't exactly strike an image that the games industry is the new gold rush. It sounds downright daunting, actually. If you just want to make a lot of money, then do something else. But people do pursue careers in gaming despite this and despite their own struggles within it. And many of their skills are transferable to other safer fields, so I again think there has to be passion.Vault101 said:
Anyway, I think you and Dexter are both right here. We need not be so binary.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-02-02-ea-old-republic-can-be-profitable-with-500-000-subsescapistpiggy said:
I see we're back in MMO myth land again. If SWTOR can hold on to 1 million subs, it will eventually be a ludicrously profitable game. The only reason it's not already a ludicrously profitable game is the fairly extraordinary cost of developing and marketing it, and the large portion of profit that needs to be spun off to Lucas.
Eventually they will introduce a FTP model, which people love to misunderstand. When DDO introduced their "FTP" model, for instance (they were one of the first to do so), their paying subscriber base doubled in one month. Not their player base. Their SUBSCRIBER base. And it's not because DDO was a special game that no one had clued into yet. It's because FTP lowers the barrier to entry and gets people invested in the game world before holding the hand out for money.
Expect TOR to be around for at least 8-10 years (barring EA's total collapse). Expect it to stabilize between 500K-1M subscribers for the long haul, which is rarefied air for MMOs not called "WoW" and would make it the 2nd most successful western MMO of all time. It will be a profitable game. It just won't be the juggernaut EA was counting on it being.
Video games as a whole won't disappear. Corporations will. Because consumers can only take so much abuse and same-old modern military FPS. In the end they're just gonna say 'fuck it' and move on to better things. Anti-consumerism in video game industry just can't last forever.
Ok so in the next year or two we will be having future military shooters. What's the difference? Kinda like before 2005 we had WW2 shooters. I really cannot see why people are so upset about this. The industry moves in phases. The modern phase is just about over, and the future phase seems to be the one to replace it, starting with Black Ops 2. Corporations won't go away because they pump out the "big" games that everyone plays. While you may not like it, indie games only make up a tiny, minuscule portion of game sales, and that most likely not change ever.Adam Jensen said:
Ok on topic. EA probably won't go under. However, they will probably cut some games from their list of productions and introduce more subscription based services. Maybe if they let their big budget games last for more than a year before the next big budget game (Battlefield and CoD) they could turn better profits.
I don't think the triple A games industry will fail completely. It might lose a bunch of companies but I think there are enough people there that it will survive, even if the number of companies has to shrink in order to support itself on a dwindling customer base. I also don't think a crash would help us out at all. That would probably mean years of nothing but small indie studios followed by a very slow return to the kind of money we have today. It could take a decade to get back to where we are now.
No, there isn't going to be another videogame crash. The console market* now is not what it was when the first crash happened.
When the first videogame crash happened there were far more competing platforms than now (most of which you probably haven't heard of), and there was almost no concept of QA. Games these days might have bugs and crashes, but there was no guarantee back then that if you bought a new game and stuck it in your console that it would even boot up.
*The PC gaming market, as was then on home computers like the Commodore 64, Sinclair Spectrum, Amstrad CPC etc was largely unaffected by the "videogame crash".
When the first videogame crash happened there were far more competing platforms than now (most of which you probably haven't heard of), and there was almost no concept of QA. Games these days might have bugs and crashes, but there was no guarantee back then that if you bought a new game and stuck it in your console that it would even boot up.
*The PC gaming market, as was then on home computers like the Commodore 64, Sinclair Spectrum, Amstrad CPC etc was largely unaffected by the "videogame crash".
I think that a crash could happen again, if the we're comparing our current state to the original crash.
1. the market was oversaturated.
All the consoles had the same games and visually there was no difference. Customers had no reason to buy anything else.
2. Games were a fad.
Today most people don't care if you play video games on whatever system,though there are some exceptions, but before the crash you had to be a child to play a video game. Despite the valiant efforts of todays companies, video ganes still have a stigma of being either for children, "the lowest denominator", or basement dwelling freaks. Combined with several gimmicks and the oversaturationof games and you get a stagnant market.
3.Exclusives can't save us this time.
Nintendo introduced the seal of approval to tell the customers that this game is cool and only for this system. Point 1 negates this so hard. Can't playMinecraft? Get one of thr obvious clones on the market place.
4. We need a crash.
This is the grittiest, murky generation ever. What happened aftter the first crash?a new console appeared and freshened the market and PCs started getting more acceptance. A new crash would PCs in the true mainstream and new consoles would focus on being consoles. Its what their best at.
1. the market was oversaturated.
All the consoles had the same games and visually there was no difference. Customers had no reason to buy anything else.
2. Games were a fad.
Today most people don't care if you play video games on whatever system,though there are some exceptions, but before the crash you had to be a child to play a video game. Despite the valiant efforts of todays companies, video ganes still have a stigma of being either for children, "the lowest denominator", or basement dwelling freaks. Combined with several gimmicks and the oversaturationof games and you get a stagnant market.
3.Exclusives can't save us this time.
Nintendo introduced the seal of approval to tell the customers that this game is cool and only for this system. Point 1 negates this so hard. Can't playMinecraft? Get one of thr obvious clones on the market place.
4. We need a crash.
This is the grittiest, murky generation ever. What happened aftter the first crash?a new console appeared and freshened the market and PCs started getting more acceptance. A new crash would PCs in the true mainstream and new consoles would focus on being consoles. Its what their best at.
I just wanna bump this quote, I just went and checked them out and they look pretty freaking sweet, if you're an RPG fan, go, go fund them now!Dexter111 said:
Edit: Blah, I missed it, can you still make donations/pre order The Banner Saga after it's gone through at all? Wasteland you can buy on their site, if anyone else is interested.