Andryah Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 interesting point indeed! I'd add that whether the development costs were too high or not is irrelevant to the longevity of the game. That's a sunk cost and there is no way to recoup it. Smart business practice is not to consider sunk costs. +10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 (edited) uh huh, and I'm sure the timing of 'the doctors' leaving had absolutely nothing to do with the performance of the company, either. Look I'm glad the game is doing better now, probably better than ever. But lets not sit here and try to re-write the past, ok? The only people trying to rewrite the past are those that are making wildly hyperbolic assertions like "before they fired everyone" etc. etc. SWTOR is operated under industry standard and relatively simple business logic -------> you size your operation and the cost of the operation to meet the forecast contribution margin targets given to you by coporate, based on forecast revenue. You do this on an annual operations plan. You review and course adjust your plan based on actuals vs forecast each quarter. You do this quarter after quarter after quarter. Your revenue goes up, you analyze why and you adjust your operations plan up accordingly. Your revenue goes down, you analyze why and and adjust your operations plan downward accordingly. All of this is done while managing the life cycle of a product where continuous content updates are an integral part of your ongoing operations. Rocket science it is not. Nor is it a hyperbole enriched exercise... except here in the forums it seems. Edited January 30, 2014 by Andryah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hadoken Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 The only people trying to rewrite the past are those that are making wildly hyperbolic assertions like "before they fired everyone" etc. etc. Oh not so, look at the one who insists nobody was let go they just got moved to different projects and the core team is intact... It exists on both sides, and there's no reason for ANY of it. Let's let the past stay in the past and not try to pretend certain things didn't happen. It's pointless, what we have now and going forward is what's of importance to the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 (edited) Oh not so, look at the one who insists nobody was let go they just got moved to different projects and the core team is intact... Except.. that was not what they actually said. They responded to the "everyone was fired" hyperbole by pointing out that indeed many were actually reassigned, and never once said or implied that nobody was let go during the summer 2012 operations plan reset. I think we can all agree that by late spring of 2012 it was clear that the game would not hold the subscribers it received during the launch surge. The operational mistake in my view here was Bioware EVER thinking they could hold more then 30% of launch surge subs. Why? because data on every MMO launch since 2010 (including WoW expacs) clearl shows that any such assumption flies in the face of industry data on players in the modern era. But the core theme here is not that they tail spun after launch.. but what did they do about it, and how, and what were the results. Any way you slice it..even harsh critics, people who abandoned the game early, and even people who are not happy with the direction of the game..... all pretty much agree that they pulled out of the tail-spin quite nicely and have thrived as a business since then. Which is not to say in any way that SWTOR is mana from heaven for all players. Clearly it is not, never was, and never will be. Then again.. NO MMO IS. Edited January 30, 2014 by Andryah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hadoken Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 Except.. that was not what they actually said. They responded to the "everyone was fired" hyperbole by pointing out that indeed many were actually reassigned, and never once said or implied that nobody was let go during the summer 2012 operations plan reset. Writers, which is patently false as the lead writer from development until after launch is no longer there and has not been for some time. And who knows how many others (not everyone says when they go). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 (edited) Writers, which is patently false as the lead writer from development until after launch is no longer there and has not been for some time. And who knows how many others (not everyone says when they go). You are being anecdotal for the sake of being argumentative at this point, IMO. Like the game or not, like it's direction or not.... I don't think any sane and objective person can say that they did not pull off an excellent recovery from what many players and critics believed was a death spiral in early summer of 2012. Did it cost people their jobs in some cases? Absolutely.. but the details, and context of those job losses are not known to any of us, and actually none of our business as players. I personally admire how well they did at finding new assignments within EA for many staffers. That shows that they value their staff, even when forced to make very difficult decisions. The decline and recovery of SWTOR into a stable running MMO of notable size and scale (2nd or 3rd in terms of active players in the western MMO market) is a textbook example of good business management and decision making in the face of crisis. Not many companies in the MMO space can compare with how well they handled things IMO. Edited January 30, 2014 by Andryah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aries_cz Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 (edited) uh huh, and I'm sure the timing of 'the doctors' leaving had absolutely nothing to do with the performance of the company, either. Yeah, no The Doctors left to brew bear and teach at schools of their own volition because they got pissed about people whining and bashing their products got all over the Internet, even though most of them were pretty false... Edited January 30, 2014 by Aries_cz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hadoken Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 You are being anecdotal for the sake of being argumentative at this point, IMO. That's a rather pathetic response from you. You can do better than that. If you can't follow the chain of events in the thread you probably shouldn't respond. All the text is right above you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOHboy Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 What i said was their core team of writes was simply moved to other games. Yes a few of the head writers moved, whose to say they were fired or realized when all the writing was done that their services were no longer needed simply moved on to other things. As any major project comes to an end, the principle high level "architects" tend to move on so they can continue making making new stuff. This is expected and acceptable. When your are writing novels worth of material the guys with the head writers are important, when you are adding pages/chapters to those novel, their overall skills are less in demand and they tend to migrate to other large scale developments. This works for just about any activity in business where one small group create something, build it to where its "finished" and then allow others to do the day to day work of maintaining and nurturing. While you go off and create new works. They move on, others are promoted from within your ranks, new staff is hired and the company continues to grow. Saying they were promptly fired due to failure is not an accurate statement. They were no longer doing the work where their skills would be a good fit so you allow them to leave (or show them the door since what they provide is no longer worth the investment). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nydus Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 Interesting point indeed! I'd add that whether the development costs were too high or not is irrelevant to the longevity of the game. That's a sunk cost and there is no way to recoup it. Smart business practice is not to consider sunk costs. Sunk costs? Who do you think you are injecting reasonable statements and business practice terms into this forum? THIS GAME HAS FAILED BECAUSE IT WASN'T CUSTOM DESIGNED FOR ME!!! - Arcada Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hadoken Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 Saying they were promptly fired due to failure is not an accurate statement. They were no longer doing the work where their skills would be a good fit so you allow them to leave (or show them the door since what they provide is no longer worth the investment). These things are not as dissimilar as you seem to believe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOHboy Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 These things are not as dissimilar as you seem to believe. They completed their work and moved on (willingly in some cases). But saying they were fired for failure was not an entirely true statement. And as I said, core team, maybe not the entire team, but probably enough to keep everything going rather than having to restart from scratch and relearn many things. And another note, writes are just that, writers, once the story has been laid out, majority of them are no longer needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terzappi Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 Curiousity? Who knows. As long as there enough players to do be able to do the content I want to, I don't particularly care about sub numbers either. If this will ever happen it will be eaware's fault. The lack of content is embarassing at all just as the lack of information around the future of the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alphasgimaone Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 These things are not as dissimilar as you seem to believe. Yes they are. One invokes a causality fallacy. The other does not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abercromb Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 If this will ever happen it will be eaware's fault. The lack of content is embarassing at all just as the lack of information around the future of the game. Lack of content? Lack of information? Not sure your playing the same game as I am. Sure they don't spell out in detail everything they are set to introduce. But we do get to hear about most major things months in advance. No MMO gives anymore details than that. As for embarrassing lack of content. I guess that would apply if you ignore the different events launched, new operations, new planet, new flashpoints and Star fighter dropped in the game in the last 6 months. If you can't find anything new to enjoy in this game from that then you will never find it in SWTOR. It is a common problem of MMO's that people set restrictive barriers for themselves in what they will do in any game and then complain when content is not released that fits that narrow viewpoint. I would suggest trying everything, get a good group of friends and run the flashpoints and operations. Try star fighter PVP. Max out your reputation with the fractions, enjoy the game. I am online every day and group with other legacy 50 friends and if we are not even close to finishing everything very few are. It's lack of will to look not lack of content that's the problem for many complainers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryboskie Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 I reupped my sub in Dec for 6 months. I think its worth it to sub with this game honestly. Definitely, I couldn't play with f2p with all the restrictions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sangrar Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Definitely, I couldn't play with f2p with all the restrictions seriously I could never handle being f2p or even preffered, being a sub for so long I would be lost without all my sub benefits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bleeters Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 I seriously dunno how you get exactly a tenth of the actual answer. Forgot to put one zero in your 139000000? ;P ... You know, I thought 47k looked much too small. That is exactly what I did, yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tangleknot Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Alright I'm posting this with the assumption that a CEO of a future MMO probobly has more knowledge in calculating revenues than we do. Don't flame the messenger, but maybe this might provide some insight into who's making money in the MMO Market. http://me.ign.com/en/news/19171/the-elder-scrolls-online-sub-fee-defended-by-pathfinder-dev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hadoken Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Alright I'm posting this with the assumption that a CEO of a future MMO probobly has more knowledge in calculating revenues than we do. Don't flame the messenger, but maybe this might provide some insight into who's making money in the MMO Market. http://me.ign.com/en/news/19171/the-elder-scrolls-online-sub-fee-defended-by-pathfinder-dev There's nothing at all wrong with the subscriber model, and there are games making plenty of money off subscriptions alone to support the game. Whether these upcoming games will be like the latter or end up changing their model as this one was forced to do remains to be seen. It really depends on the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torenator Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 (edited) There's nothing at all wrong with the subscriber model, and there are games making plenty of money off subscriptions alone to support the game. Whether these upcoming games will be like the latter or end up changing their model as this one was forced to do remains to be seen. It really depends on the game. w t f is club penguin lol? And how is it more profitable from subs that TOR?? Edited January 31, 2014 by Torenator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hadoken Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 w t f is club penguin lol? And how is it more profitable from subs that TOR?? Think it's a Disney MMO for kids, so there's your answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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