BIG Announcement redux - Page 3

Vordox · 03-25-2012, 11:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mmorpeegee

Sometimes I wonder if they only bought it just to stop someone else buying it and turning it in to a great game that SOE could never compete with.

I got accused of wearing a tin foil hat last time I suggested that, but I don't care :P

No I'm sure SOE got it at a bargain price and recouped the money 3 times over. Not like they coulda sold it to Microsoft. Microsoft was tired of the run around Brad was giving them and they finally washed their hands of him. There was really only one logical choice for Brad to make I'm sure having a relationship with Smedly and all. SOE is where all good games go to die.

I hope Brad at least got some help with his personal problems because he seemed like a pretty decent person. I wish him the best regardless of how I used to feel. (I was fairly angry about the VG going to SOE fiasco and was banned from these very forums more than once. Turns out I was right how VG would end up.)

Loampounder · 03-25-2012, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vordox2

No I'm sure SOE got it at a bargain price and recouped the money 3 times over.

That's not my impression. SOE had to invest money (probably a few million) into development, then support ads and distribution, but only took over Sigil when Sigil defaulted on agreements (basically, had no money to survive and had to close shop). SOE then paid a development team to support the game while the population dived. Profit from subscription games is over long term and in volumes. Paying a few developers and maintain supoort/bandwidth on a small customer base does not collect much profit.

Over the past two years, SOE cut their costs down, but they also have very few customers. I don't see how money is recouped.

Vordox · 03-25-2012, 04:38 PM

Not trying to argue with you but I don't believe you are taking into account Sigil's years of development they had to pay employees,and the building and a plethora of other expenditures that go into creating a playable game. I mean to get a mostly completed game that has already sold over 2k worth of games and also to get back the talented employees that left SOE to build Vanguard was a win win for SOE. So I'm not getting exactly how SOE lost anything. All SOE's development team has to do is fix some bugs and add some content which they pay the same people to do everyday just on different in house games. I mean SOE has it all at their fingertips believe me they made money on the deal and plenty.

Who else do you think would have bought that bug ridden game other than SOE? Brad and Smedley have known each other for years that's probably the only reason even they bought it. I mean seriously do a search on Vanguards release it was horrible and think logically who would have wanted to take that game over with all that bad press? Games never really recover from a absolutely horrid release like that. So One would have to assume from a business sense no one would have touched it.

SOE was already involved in the publishing and I'm pretty sure they were running the servers so they were already fiscally in bed with Vanguard anyway. So when you are partnered up with someone in business you usually let your partner have the buyout option.

In closing SOE only does one thing right they get great games for peanuts and they spend as little as possible to keep it alive. You will never see them take a game and improve it, EVER.

Loampounder · 03-26-2012, 04:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vordox2

All SOE's development team has to do is fix some bugs and add some content which they pay the same people to do everyday just on different in house games. I mean SOE has it all at their fingertips believe me they made money on the deal and plenty.

You mention the money that Sigil spend to get the game to launch, but how do you think Sigil got that money? For that last year, the money to pay everything at Sigil came from SOE. Those 150 employees at Sigil with overhead were paid for by SOE. The sales on the 200K boxes went to pay Sigil's costs. "Fix some bugs"? You have CS, community reps, IT to maintain servers (in US and Europe), developers for the first year or two to work on revamps (Isle of Dawn, Khal, dungeon revamps). And pay for it all while trying to recoup some of the millions of dollars they orginally sunk into Sigil. At least it was not the tens of millions that MS and other investors lost.

Vordox · 03-26-2012, 10:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loampounder

You mention the money that Sigil spend to get the game to launch, but how do you think Sigil got that money? For that last year, the money to pay everything at Sigil came from SOE. Those 150 employees at Sigil with overhead were paid for by SOE. The sales on the 200K boxes went to pay Sigil's costs. "Fix some bugs"? You have CS, community reps, IT to maintain servers (in US and Europe), developers for the first year or two to work on revamps (Isle of Dawn, Khal, dungeon revamps). And pay for it all while trying to recoup some of the millions of dollars they orginally sunk into Sigil. At least it was not the tens of millions that MS and other investors lost.

Sony didn't get involved until May of 06 the work for VG started in 2002 thats a whole 4+ years of production. the game released in Jan 07 I'm no mathematician but I would have to say an assload of a lot more money was spent making the game then SOE spent to sustain it.

SOE (I repeat) already has CS's,community reps,Developers,and IT in house that they pay anyway whether its VG, SWG, Pirates,etc... Thats why they can maintain the games they have so shabbily. No real dedicated people to each game they lift them from game to game as needed. Look at VG with Silius they moved him back and forth to projects other than VG as well. (hated him anyway.)

Actually above you just argued against your own conspiracy theory lol. You made a great argument why SOE would have wanted to keep Vanguard contrary to your "They just bought it so no one else would get it" theory lol
YOU WIN

Loampounder · 03-26-2012, 10:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vordox2

Sony didn't get involved until May of 06 the work for VG started in 2002 thats a whole 4+ years of production. the game released in Jan 07 I'm no mathematician but I would have to say an assload of a lot more money was spent making the game then SOE spent to sustain it.

True, but the first $40M is not part of the discussion. The question is did SOE make money (recouped it 3 x over) on their investment. They did get a great deal, but I just don't see it making any money.

Quote:

Actually above you just argued against your own conspiracy theory lol. You made a great argument why SOE would have wanted to keep Vanguard contrary to your "They just bought it so no one else would get it" theory lol

This makes no sense at all. I don't think SOE bought it so no one else would get it. SOE bought it because they thought they could get it for pennies on the dollar and rake in money when it did well. Sadly, it did not do well and they lost money (IMHO). After SOE took over VG, Smed said in an interview that he did not know how bad of a shape it was in, and would not have made the deal if he had known. They saw a BMW on sale for $2,000 because the paint was rough, but realized too late that it had no engine and the interior was trashed. You seem to be enthalled by the idea that they got a BMW.

Vordox · 03-26-2012, 11:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loampounder

This makes no sense at all. I don't think SOE bought it so no one else would get it. SOE bought it because they thought they could get it for pennies on the dollar and rake in money when it did well. Sadly, it did not do well and they lost money (IMHO). After SOE took over VG, Smed said in an interview that he did not know how bad of a shape it was in, and would not have made the deal if he had known. They saw a BMW on sale for $2,000 because the paint was rough, but realized too late that it had no engine and the interior was trashed. You seem to be enthalled by the idea that they got a BMW.

You are right it makes no sense I just realized you are not Mmorpeegee who I initially quoted and addressed. I don't see so well ,my bad. I have been arguing with a guy who never responded and thought you were him since it was in the same vain a bit lol sorry again.

A great deal is a mostly finished AAA MMO placed in your lap at pennies on the dollar. To use your analogy it is like someone giving you a brand new BMW for $50 only you have to put it together. Hell if I can't put it together or find a way thats my stupidity. It is still a deal that is up to you to capitalize on.

SOE took it on for the simple fact that they were invested already and they thought they could turn a profit I agree.I'm sure they at least got the initial investment back. If they knew what they were doing they could have done a lot better,But SOE can't do anything but kill a good game. They have proven this time and time again.

Loampounder · 03-27-2012, 02:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vordox2

You are right it makes no sense I just realized you are not Mmorpeegee who I initially quoted and addressed. I don't see so well ,my bad.

Inexcuseable. I would never have so many ee's in my name.

Quote:

It is still a deal that is up to you to capitalize on.

That's still unproved. It's a potential deal, but we don't know what the rate of return was. If they put $5M into the game in 2006 and got $6M out over five years, that's not a deal. Did they put $4M in and got $12M out? We will never know, but I don't see it. On a limited population, most if not all of the subscription goes to paying direct costs and overhead and nothing goes to repaying the initial investment.

Fozzik · 03-27-2012, 06:05 AM

Keep in mind that SOE's overhead on any individual game is going to be dramatically lower than a typical MMORPG company. They have a large stable of games (what I call the SOE graveyard), and enjoy the economy of scale. They already have all the infrastructure and support and everything else in place... the servers are already paid for by the many other titles they are hosting. So the overhead costs per game are very low...and they can average things out between their more successful and less successful games.

I think that's the business model they decided on quite a long time ago... having one really good game can make you rich, but having a huge pile of mediocre or bad games can make you rich, too. They figure they'll catch everyone with at least one game... they are taking the shotgun approach and it's been working for them for years.

I hate SOE. I think they have done more damage to the genre than many other companies combined. Just wanted to make that clear since the above couple paragraphs probably sound a little bit positive...they aren't meant to be. Just reality.

So, it would be very unlikely that any other game company would have made any money off of Vanguard, due to the large hole Sigil was in, and the lack of subscribers. But SOE is in a unique position of being able to run the game almost free because of their pre-existing infrastructure. So...I'm guessing SOE made a bit of money or at least broke even, and that's all they care about. They deal in volume, not quality.

Vordox · 03-27-2012, 07:15 AM

^ what he said lol...

Yeah sorry Loampoundeeeeeer lol. I guess my age is catchin up with me

Fozzik · 03-27-2012, 07:53 AM

You're not that old. come on, now.

mmorpeegee · 03-27-2012, 08:05 AM

I'm so old my phone number is 1.

Fozzik · 03-27-2012, 08:10 AM

Weird. That's my social security number.

mmorpeegee · 03-27-2012, 10:45 AM

Lol, and written on parchment with a quill.

Vordox · 03-27-2012, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fozzik

You're not that old. come on, now.

I'll be 50 next year so I'm feeling pretty old. I'm so old I remember when dirt was clean! I'm so old I used to ride a dinosaur to school...I'm so.....ok you get the point lol

Vanguard2112 · 03-30-2012, 08:27 PM

so in the latest mini patch... they finally clipped Randolfs wings so he only flys around christmas time lol.

For some reason that free flying mount really got under my skin, him being gone makes me want to explore Vanguard again.... guess ill hit it up when it goes FTP

Loampounder · 03-31-2012, 01:11 AM

Yes, after all these years of a free flying mount, SOE ended it just before f2p was introduced. Hmmmmm....

Gecon · 04-04-2012, 04:41 AM

I have to say removeal of Randolph reduced my motivation to play VG.

Many things that where easy and fast and simple to do before have now turned into very complicated, time consuming issues.

Dragon-RD · 04-10-2012, 03:27 PM

Well that's reasonable news, I'll give it a whirl again should it be the case.

Actually, thinking on it, anyone game for starting a new character? If we can get a group of us to play it might well be entertaining. I've a Mumble server we can use.

Loampounder · 05-13-2012, 08:30 PM

So, in the eight weeks that the F2P news was released, nothing (good) has changed in Vanguard:

- Free flying mount was removed
- Lag was introduced across all areas, especially bad in the higher level areas, but this may be because they are more populated
- Some patches created new merchant trash loot that rapided increased the money in the economy
- Server crashes have been very common (a couple times a week)
- veteran's reward now includes a chance to get top raid loot, without ever going on a raid
- No new information has been released on a roadmap of new content or even the F2P schedule

Basically, it seems that the dev team is working on it and feels free to tinker/experiment on the live servers. SOE might have even changed server hardware based on the greatly reduced stability of the game. I really feel bad for the people who stuck with VG, since they are being treated rather poorly by SOE.