Converting from a pure subscription-based title to a hybrid free-to-play (F2P) is something than more than one MMO title has seen happen. And generally the indication from the studio is that such a move makes mad bank. When Cryptic Studios converted Champions Online to F2P, they said revenue went up 1000%; when Turbine Studios converted … Continue reading
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An Update That Promises Further Updates
So NCsoft’s Q4 2012 earning results are out now and although City of Heroes / Villains saw an increase in revenue after going F2P, it isn’t the huge jump you might expect to see. This could be one of the reasons why Paragon Studios has made the move of introducing variable ratio randomised rewards you … Continue reading
Double Fine & Kickstarter: Everyone Is Still Going To Their Day Jobs Tomorrow
One of the hot topics at the moment is Double Fine’s Kickstarter project, with the mere words “a Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert point-and-click adventure” was enough to send some gamers into a donating frenzy – at this point a shade over 47 500 people have donated over US$1.6m towards the project. And there is … Continue reading
Star Wars: The Old Republic – SWTOR vs. WAR!
… and Age of Conan, for that matter. EA announced during their earnings call that Star Wars: The Old Republic had sold over 2 million boxes and had 1.7 million subscribed players, beating EA’s internal projections. A lot of sources took that at face value as a great result, but was it? Let’s look at … Continue reading
An Online Platform User Statistic For Comparison
Valve’s Steam has 40 million users (up from 35 million in 2010). It made Valve almost US$1 billion in games sales in 2010. Microsoft has 40 million users on Xbox Live (up from 30 million in 2011). This earned an an estimate of over US$1 billion revenue from game, movie and TV show-related content in … Continue reading
How Many Players Did City of Heroes / Villains Have Before Launching Freedom?
In the rush before Xmas, I missed NCsoft’s investor relations release for the Q3 2011 period. NCsoft is unique among MMO developers in that its quarterly earnings releases include a breakdown of revenue collected from each of their key titles in that period, making it very easy to track how a title is performing. Although … Continue reading
Star Wars – The Old Republic: And The Final Price Is…
In my previous examination of Star Wars: The Old Republic, the development budget from various sources ranged from the probably too-low US$80m (plus US$20 for advertising) through to US$300m. The LA Times has indicated that SWOR’s development cost sits at US$200m, while analyst Doug Creutz of Cowen & Co. suggested that EA’s “total all-in investment … Continue reading
The Unplayed Gaming List – January 2012
Xmas has come and gone. The Xmas and post-Xmas sales have come and gone. Time to update the unplayed gaming list. Dispatched Bayonetta (X360): Finished this on Normal difficulty, started again on the next harder difficulty and have shelved the game after running into a roadblock at a particular Alfheim Portal. Might come back to … Continue reading
City of Heroes / Villains: The Killing of Statesman, And Where We Go From Here
Back in December, Paragon Studios spoilered their own story when they publicly announced that Statesman would be the one to die in the “Who Will Die?” signature story arc. That Statesman is apparently dying in part 5 of what I believe to be a 7 part story arc raises my Eyebrow of Cynicism +3 – … Continue reading
Looking (Again) At MMO / RPG Quest Types
A long while ago I looked at the types of quests that MMOs (and indeed, even single player RPGs) are limited to and came up with 10 different types. However, over time I’ve thought that the list was incorrect in a number of ways, especially since it didn’t consider the ‘reverse’ version of each quest … Continue reading
World Class Villains 