Yet another game lost to SOE?

Cahnuuk said:
Their mistake was in not reaching out to non-gamers.
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And I'm willing to bet the same thing happens to PotBS, and in this MMO saturated market that doesn't bode well.

The game might be all well and fine, but it'll more than likely end up being another low subscription portion in the Station Access package.
 
Oh, and another thing... with this, and the new MMOs coming down the pipe, I'm wondering if/when SOE will raise the Station Access price again.
 
djmtott said:
Oh, and another thing... with this, and the new MMOs coming down the pipe, I'm wondering if/when SOE will raise the Station Access price again.
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That is a risky business, not many people hold more than one MMOs. There is no times, since one is so time consuming already. If they go over 30, it won't sell as good.
 
djmtott said:
And I'm willing to bet the same thing happens to PotBS, and in this MMO saturated market that doesn't bode well.

The game might be all well and fine, but it'll more than likely end up being another low subscription portion in the Station Access package.
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But it's better than what Flying Labs could have ever done on their own.
 
Sovi said:
Like STEAM, woo!
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Well, a lot of developers don't have the distribution capability needed to market a product. That's why you see games shipped with a small time development logo right next to the Atari logo, who handled distribution.

Wasn't PotBS supposed to release on Steam? Thought I saw that a while back. If that's true, that raises some questions why none of the other major distributors picked PotBS up, until they had to ultimately share profits with SOE.
 
Well i dont agree especially for MMO's and more than that on this case. There are many Sail age fans who played games like Sid Meier's Pirates, Sea Dogs from Bethesda and Age of Sail. All these guys have many fan based very nice web-sites and these guys are aware of PoBS for a long time.

The first FAQ site for PoBS was also made by a fan of the game. If i were FLS and would need help there I would rely on my community rather than a 3rd party which will cost money especially when its SOE with all the bad reputation. Cooperation between devs and dedicated fans is something underestimated, if players really believe in the games they can create masterpieces as its seen in many games which are open to modifications. There are so many examples in the market and altho i am not directly related in the gaming industry as a long time player, I am aware of this fact.

Now lets get real, how many ppl would you be able to get as a customer for a MMO where you would be in charge of sailing a ship? Make the dynamics too simple and you will lose all the sail fans who knows a lot about a ship's sail, wind and cannon mechanics who are the real target audience. Make it a little detailed and the average casual player whom you are targeting by advertising will not bother.

MMO's are not like single player type games, you cant alter the difficulty, you cant allow cheat codes and you cant implement save/load features.

As for monetary reasons, there are many FREE MMO's in the market, some are played by hundereds of thousand of ppl, there is the example of Dark and Light, which created a huge hype with out any kind of advertisement.
There are many player hosted mods for Lineage, WoW etc. If you are telling me FLS cant host their game when there are such examples, I am sorry but I cant believe it especially when they will get subscription fees come their release. Plus if you can run a beta program for 10.000 players you can run the actual game. 10.000 players means 150k USdollars in montly income minus the CC charge.

In business angle I dont understand the need to sign a contract with a publisher for PoBS with the released terms. Thats why I think there are things which was not said to the community.
 
whooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, Psychic Hakan :lol:

Can you tell me what the lottery numbers will be this weekend?
 
Artica said:
They have gotten better on selling a product without believing in it, and/or care for their customers. I think, all they think about is how they can shove it to you in the smooth way. And by the time you notice, is not their problem anymore. Is the customer's baby.

The perfect definition for a rape. ;)
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Hmmm.... I think "seduction" is the appropriate term. ^_^
 
Hakan said:
Well i dont agree especially for MMO's and more than that on this case. There are many Sail age fans who played games like Sid Meier's Pirates, Sea Dogs from Bethesda and Age of Sail. All these guys have many fan based very nice web-sites and these guys are aware of PoBS for a long time.

The first FAQ site for PoBS was also made by a fan of the game. If i were FLS and would need help there I would rely on my community rather than a 3rd party which will cost money especially when its SOE with all the bad reputation. Cooperation between devs and dedicated fans is something underestimated, if players really believe in the games they can create masterpieces as its seen in many games which are open to modifications. There are so many examples in the market and altho i am not directly related in the gaming industry as a long time player, I am aware of this fact.

Now lets get real, how many ppl would you be able to get as a customer for a MMO where you would be in charge of sailing a ship? Make the dynamics too simple and you will lose all the sail fans who knows a lot about a ship's sail, wind and cannon mechanics who are the real target audience. Make it a little detailed and the average casual player whom you are targeting by advertising will not bother.

MMO's are not like single player type games, you cant alter the difficulty, you cant allow cheat codes and you cant implement save/load features.

As for monetary reasons, there are many FREE MMO's in the market, some are played by hundereds of thousand of ppl, there is the example of Dark and Light, which created a huge hype with out any kind of advertisement.
There are many player hosted mods for Lineage, WoW etc. If you are telling me FLS cant host their game when there are such examples, I am sorry but I cant believe it especially when they will get subscription fees come their release. Plus if you can run a beta program for 10.000 players you can run the actual game. 10.000 players means 150k USdollars in montly income minus the CC charge.

In business angle I dont understand the need to sign a contract with a publisher for PoBS with the released terms. Thats why I think there are things which was not said to the community.
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Maybe the FBS folks don't want to be bothered with publishing. There's a certain culture that is necessary to manage operations day-to-day, to deal with bandwidth providers, etc., that is different from the culture that is best for developing stuff. If you have a nice tight little company that develops great stuff, one recipe for failure is for the management to take it for granted and start focusing on other things like operations and advertising.

SOE has a track record for eking out cash flow with "bad" titles. They are also probably hungry to restore some rep and market share. These two things make them actually more likely to cut a good deal with a developer than the market giants are. Blizzard and NCSoft are unlikely to cut good deals with independent developers, because they are doing just fine right now and know it.

The needs of first-title developers are complementary with the needs of SOE. They need to get some kind of payback for their effort in the form of cash flowing in quickly, to offset the debt and/or equity return demands piling up. They don't want to commit a lot more capital to get that payback. Finally, they often want to hedge the possibilities of high returns from go-it-alone profits against the possibilities of market failure because of competition, operational failure, and to-be-discovered product quality issues.

Business sucks in a lot of ways, but business is the best proven way to get the good-enough imperfection accomplished. Perfection will of course remain forever unattainable.
 
What you say maybe true Poldano but still as a long time businessman even tho I am retired now, I dont understand and see logic behind this deal.

A business is based on making money and my business instincts tell me a company can not benefit with the said data from such a deal. But like I said in many posts The Dev team of PoBS apart from isildur are very nice guys and i wish them best luck.
 
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