Category: Editorials

NCSoft Q2 2012: Profits Down, Revenue Up


NCSoft has released its finances for the second quarter of 2012, and considering that the major MMO news sites suddenly care enough to report on it, I can only assume that there is some drama to be had. Compared to last quarter, revenues are up thanks to solid Lineage sales and royalties, however NCSoft is in the red on operating profit and net income due to what the company refers to as “one-off labor costs.” Here are the bullet points of important details to explain why NCSoft’s profits sunk so low:

  • Lineage sales were strong Korea, however Aion sales tanked due to “scaled back in-game item sales.”
  • Labor costs surged 27% this past quarter due to severance-pay.
  • Royalty expenses increased 35%
  • Marketing expenses were up 112% over last quarter due to Blade & Soul
  • D&A increased 28%
  • NCSoft’s acquisition of Ntreev also ended up being a major cost.

While sales in Korea and Japan held strong, sales in North America continued a slight decline over last quarter. Europe has been hit the hardest, with sales decreasing to virtually nothing (less than 1% of sales for the quarter).

The launch of Guild Wars 2 is expected to make up for any losses incurred this quarter.

Tuesday Top Five: Most Anticipated MMOs Still A Long Way Out


I came to kick ass and not release for fourteen years, and I’ve already been released.

Welcome to Tuesday Top Five, where we compile the top five items into the categories where they fit best. It’s like putting together a puzzle with your family, without the risk of someone being chivved. For today’s list, I wanted to go over my top five MMOs that we won’t be playing for a long time. By we, of course, I mean the western audience as one or more of these titles may be releasing soon, or has already released, in Korea, China, or other eastern countries.

5. Transformers Universe

Jagex still has Transformers Universe set for a late 2012 launch, but with minimal details and Jagex’s past history of development, odds are we won’t be seeing a beta this Christmas. So far all Jagex has shown of Transformers Universe is a limited character creator, a few animations, and some sparse details on game mechanics.

If I had to guess, I’d say we won’t be hearing much about Transformers until 2013, when Jagex will either announce a delay or that the game has been cancelled.

4. Lineage Eternal

Adding Lineage Eternal to this list may be a bit unfair. All things considered, NCSoft has a lot on their plates between the free to play transitions of Aion and Lineage II, the development of Wildstar and Lineage Eternal, and localizing Blade & Soul to a western audience. Lineage Eternal has large ambitions ahead of it and the game was just revealed last November.

Lineage Eternal still has a year or two before release.

3. Wizardry Online

Hardcore MMO? Check. Permadeath? Check. Insane difficulty? Triple check. The more I hear about Wizardry, the more I feel like I must be a glutton for punishment, and beatings. To top it off, Wizardry Online will be a free to play game with a cash shop. A fully integrated pvp combat system, permanent death, no mini-map, and high end graphics. How can this go wrong? Don’t answer that.

More important: The Wizardry Online website states that the game will go live in Summer 2012. It is August 7th and beta still isn’t scheduled for another few months. So hopefully Wizardry will surprise me and launch sooner than I am expecting. After all, it has already launched in Japan.

2. World of Darkness

First off: You kill vampires, you don’t make out with them. With CCP working hard on Eve Online and DUST 514, players are reasonably questioning the future of World of Darkness. While it is relatively safe to say World of Darkness will release eventually, the 60-member development team is working as fast as possible to bring the world of Vampire: The Masquerade into the MMO genre. Initially set to only feature vampires, over time World of Darkness will allow players to roll as werewolves and mages. In keeping with the CCP hardcore HTFU design, players are not only allowed to but encouraged to scheme, plot, and screw over their fellow vampires. Be careful when you do, however: Cities will be player-controlled, and with the inclusion of perma-death, your actions could lead to very dire consequences.

Unlike some of the other games on this list, World of Darkness falls to slow development due to higher priorities on other projects. There is no release date for World of Darkness as of this writing.

1. Archeage

If you haven’t heard of Archeage, many sandbox MMO fans will be happy to fill you in on how the game is the next coming of God. As one user put it, Archeage is all about doing whatever you want to progress. You can build your own house, build ships, plant crops, chop down trees and replant them, craft, sell your wares, engage in combat, form your own country, and a whole lot more I can’t even get into. Without a doubt, XLGames has the sandbox community frothing at the mouth waiting for a notice on western release.

Unfortunately, there is no real concrete date on when that will happen. While Archeage aims to launch in Korea late this year, XLGames has yet to come up with a western publisher. While the aim is to get Archeage into western hands by early 2014, there is no guarantee that the game will be localized and ready for launch by that point.

Video of the _____: Shadowrun Online Contextual Gameplay


Shadowrun Online has only 7 days left and $250,000 in funding to raise, so Cliffhanger Productions has released a video describing how each class sees the world.

(Source: Kickstarter)

Age of Conan Server Mergers Coming August 7th


Early next year, Funcom plans on integrating the single server technology from The Secret World into Age of Conan. In the announcement, Funcom revealed that while it may be possible to merge the different rule sets into one server, the game’s antiquated technology prevents North American and European players from interacting with one another. With the long road ahead until the single mega-server technology is fully integrated and ready to roll out, Funcom has begun announcing server mergers to get the community ready.

On August 7th, the US servers Set and Wicana will be merged into one server: Set. The next day, the EU will see its servers Mitra and Asgard merged into one: Mitra. Characters will keep their names on the basis of activity, level (if both active), registration (if same level), and last login (if registered same month). After the server merge has taken place, characters will be given a free transfer that can be used cross-ruleset (but not cross-region) good for one month. You can read more at the server FAQ below.

(Source: Age of Conan)

(Also: Age of Conan EU)

Jagex's Problem With "Not RuneScape"


In the Jagex family you really only fit into one of two categories: RuneScape and Not RuneScape. What is the difference, you ask? Well, the RuneScape category is successful and the “Not RuneScape” category is not.

1. FunOrb Was Abandoned And Left For Dead

As per numerous Jagex posts on the RuneScape forums, Funorb is discontinued and no longer supported. Not only did Jagex abandon Funorb when the service wasn’t as profitable as they had hoped, there was never an official announcement that development had ceased. Instead Jagex whisked the Funorb developers silently, without informing anyone that development had ceased, and moved the entire team over to 8Realms. To this day, the Funorb website still does not display any indication that the service has been discontinued, unless you count that the latest news post is dated 2010.

Funorb still runs today, likely because there are still a small number of people who still hold on to the service and the website probably costs very little to keep running, but it is fully discontinued and has no moderators working on it. To top things off…

2. 8Realms Never Launched…

A second blow to Funorb fans. 8Realms was supposed to be Jagex’s first in-house game developed on a platform other than Java, not to mention Jagex’s first developed game to feature a fully functioning cash shop that offered real advantages to throwing large sums of money. I gave a quick hands-on impression of 8Realms, and while the game was enjoyable, it carried a fatal caveat: regular server wipes. In all, the game was one giant race to the end, and whenever someone made it to the end, the entire server was wiped and everyone started again.

For a game attempting to coerce players into opening their wallets for those delicious gems, 8Realms was set to be a very expensive experience. One with little payout, considering only one player could actually win and then all of your money spent was for nothing. In the end, 8Realms gathered a whopping ten percent of the income needed to stay afloat, and was trashed in beta.

3. Stellar Dawn/MechScape Show Woefully Substandard Community Relations

Having written this website for as long as I have, I am well acquainted with how MMOs are marketed: years ahead of time. Not only are these games in development for years before they are even announced, the announcement can take place two, often three or more years before the game ever hits store shelves. I even had a term for this: hype fatigue, to describe a point after a game is announced where interest wanes due to long development cycles. In the case of the MMO industry, where titles can and have been delayed well over a year, this effect is rather widespread.

When MechScape was under development, Jagex refused to talk about the game at all. Then-CEO Geoff Iddison would give an interview every now and then to reassure the community that the game would be out in 2008, and that the product they were creating was so great, it might even surpass RuneScape. For the length of its development up until the game was finally cancelled months after its intended launch date, not a single screenshot or video capture of the game was released to the public. Jagex refused to talk about more than concepts and vague promises, and ultimately the game was canned (and possibly so was Geoff Iddison) for not living up to expectations.

MechScape was cancelled to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, and in its place Stellar Dawn was born. In their announcement in 2009, Jagex stated that not only would Stellar Dawn succeed where MechScape failed, it was ready for release in 2010. I hope you see where I’m going with this. Following in the tradition of its predecessor, and proving that Jagex had learned nothing from the lack of communication with its community (or the press) about MechScape, Jagex silently worked away on Stellar Dawn throughout 2010, pausing in July to launch the official website with a “coming 2011” banner. At this point, Jagex had already announced Transformers Universe for a 2012 launch date, leaving me asking: Does Jagex even care about Stellar Dawn?

Well, 2011 came and went without a single video clip, screenshot, or the kind of details you might expect from an upcoming MMO (or any other release), and in March 2012 we finally learned that Stellar Dawn has been put on developmental hold so Jagex can focus on their other products. In fact, Jagex’s communication over Stellar Dawn was so poor that the official website displayed a “coming 2011” banner well into 2012 before the game was put on pause.

4. Transformers Universe Is Following The Same Path

I have to say, I have more optimism for Transformers Universe, and I will explain why: Third party IP holders. This isn’t Stellar Dawn or MechScape or Funorb, or 8Realms where Jagex owns everything surrounding the game and can develop and release to their heart’s content. Oh no, Transformers Universe means contractual obligations. Hasbro is the master and Jagex is the humble servant, making sure that the game is developed in a manner that is approved, on a timeline that is approved, and ready for launch by a date that is approved.

I said the same thing with the company being run by investors: Jagex’s previous projects are a fine example that, left to their own accord, the company will screw around for a few years, waste countless millions and the good faith of their community, and eventually scrap the game entirely because it didn’t turn out fun. Nobody wins, not the developers who are laid off, not the community, and not the investors who expect their money to be spent wisely.

Mark Gerhard recently interviewed with Develop Online, where he mentioned that the company was abandoning its “hobby” projects and giving serious focus to its current and future titles. Good. All it took to reach this conclusion was two failed MMOs, one failed MMORTS, one failed games portal, and one CEO.

Jagex’s Problem With “Not RuneScape”


In the Jagex family you really only fit into one of two categories: RuneScape and Not RuneScape. What is the difference, you ask? Well, the RuneScape category is successful and the “Not RuneScape” category is not.

1. FunOrb Was Abandoned And Left For Dead

As per numerous Jagex posts on the RuneScape forums, Funorb is discontinued and no longer supported. Not only did Jagex abandon Funorb when the service wasn’t as profitable as they had hoped, there was never an official announcement that development had ceased. Instead Jagex whisked the Funorb developers silently, without informing anyone that development had ceased, and moved the entire team over to 8Realms. To this day, the Funorb website still does not display any indication that the service has been discontinued, unless you count that the latest news post is dated 2010.

Funorb still runs today, likely because there are still a small number of people who still hold on to the service and the website probably costs very little to keep running, but it is fully discontinued and has no moderators working on it. To top things off…

2. 8Realms Never Launched…

A second blow to Funorb fans. 8Realms was supposed to be Jagex’s first in-house game developed on a platform other than Java, not to mention Jagex’s first developed game to feature a fully functioning cash shop that offered real advantages to throwing large sums of money. I gave a quick hands-on impression of 8Realms, and while the game was enjoyable, it carried a fatal caveat: regular server wipes. In all, the game was one giant race to the end, and whenever someone made it to the end, the entire server was wiped and everyone started again.

For a game attempting to coerce players into opening their wallets for those delicious gems, 8Realms was set to be a very expensive experience. One with little payout, considering only one player could actually win and then all of your money spent was for nothing. In the end, 8Realms gathered a whopping ten percent of the income needed to stay afloat, and was trashed in beta.

3. Stellar Dawn/MechScape Show Woefully Substandard Community Relations

Having written this website for as long as I have, I am well acquainted with how MMOs are marketed: years ahead of time. Not only are these games in development for years before they are even announced, the announcement can take place two, often three or more years before the game ever hits store shelves. I even had a term for this: hype fatigue, to describe a point after a game is announced where interest wanes due to long development cycles. In the case of the MMO industry, where titles can and have been delayed well over a year, this effect is rather widespread.

When MechScape was under development, Jagex refused to talk about the game at all. Then-CEO Geoff Iddison would give an interview every now and then to reassure the community that the game would be out in 2008, and that the product they were creating was so great, it might even surpass RuneScape. For the length of its development up until the game was finally cancelled months after its intended launch date, not a single screenshot or video capture of the game was released to the public. Jagex refused to talk about more than concepts and vague promises, and ultimately the game was canned (and possibly so was Geoff Iddison) for not living up to expectations.

MechScape was cancelled to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, and in its place Stellar Dawn was born. In their announcement in 2009, Jagex stated that not only would Stellar Dawn succeed where MechScape failed, it was ready for release in 2010. I hope you see where I’m going with this. Following in the tradition of its predecessor, and proving that Jagex had learned nothing from the lack of communication with its community (or the press) about MechScape, Jagex silently worked away on Stellar Dawn throughout 2010, pausing in July to launch the official website with a “coming 2011” banner. At this point, Jagex had already announced Transformers Universe for a 2012 launch date, leaving me asking: Does Jagex even care about Stellar Dawn?

Well, 2011 came and went without a single video clip, screenshot, or the kind of details you might expect from an upcoming MMO (or any other release), and in March 2012 we finally learned that Stellar Dawn has been put on developmental hold so Jagex can focus on their other products. In fact, Jagex’s communication over Stellar Dawn was so poor that the official website displayed a “coming 2011” banner well into 2012 before the game was put on pause.

4. Transformers Universe Is Following The Same Path

I have to say, I have more optimism for Transformers Universe, and I will explain why: Third party IP holders. This isn’t Stellar Dawn or MechScape or Funorb, or 8Realms where Jagex owns everything surrounding the game and can develop and release to their heart’s content. Oh no, Transformers Universe means contractual obligations. Hasbro is the master and Jagex is the humble servant, making sure that the game is developed in a manner that is approved, on a timeline that is approved, and ready for launch by a date that is approved.

I said the same thing with the company being run by investors: Jagex’s previous projects are a fine example that, left to their own accord, the company will screw around for a few years, waste countless millions and the good faith of their community, and eventually scrap the game entirely because it didn’t turn out fun. Nobody wins, not the developers who are laid off, not the community, and not the investors who expect their money to be spent wisely.

Mark Gerhard recently interviewed with Develop Online, where he mentioned that the company was abandoning its “hobby” projects and giving serious focus to its current and future titles. Good. All it took to reach this conclusion was two failed MMOs, one failed MMORTS, one failed games portal, and one CEO.

Glitch Beta Key Giveaway


[UPDATE] I have more invites, so comments have been reopened. Again, remember you will need a legitimate, active email address and to answer the email I send you to confirm.

It’s been a long time since Tiny Speck opened Glitch up to the public: Ten months by my count. But a few days ago, Tiny Speck opened the door to newbies by offering beta invites to current players. As promised in my previous article, I will be offering those invites up to the first three who comment.

The requirements are simple, but I will repeat them again since several of you had your posts looked over last time:

  • You must provide a valid email address. I will be sending you an email to confirm before I send the invite.
  • The first three to comment will be sent an email confirming that the address they gave is valid.
  • Once again, you must respond to the email.

 

 

John Smedley On: PlaneSide 2


John Smedley dropped by Reddit for an “Ask Me Anything,” and the community certainly did ask him anything. Naturally, the Q&A started with Smedley being asked, once again, to apologize for Star Wars Galaxies, which he did. For the sake of time, I’ve compiled a few of his more interesting answers.

In regards to Planetside 2’s premium subscription:

“subscription will NOT remotely be something you need to have. just something nice to have.”

When asked about an Everquest Classic (non-progression) server:

“if that’s what EQ fans wanted we would”

On Everquest Next:

“we plan to make EQ Next great by going places MMOS have never gone. I know that’s vague but it’s coming”

On advertising DUST 514:

“I’m sure helping get the word out. It is a great game. CCP is awesome.”

On balance in Planetside 2:

“At it’s heart, PS2 is similar to PS1. play it and let me know what you think.”

On hand-holding in MMOs:

“I despise the hand holding shit. hate it in a big way.”

On Vanguard:

“It’s going F2P next week with many members of the original team on it! It’s getting a lot of love.”

On streaming Planetside 2:

“We might even be working on a secret twitch.tv and youtube streaming thing I can’t talk about that might or might not be going in as I’m writing this.”

If you want to look through the comments yourself, check em out here:

(Source: Reddit)

World of Warcraft Dropping More Weight: Another Million Subscribers Lost


World of Warcraft is a paradox in and of itself: While the subscription numbers continue to drop, Blizzard has been very quick to point out that the game just continues to become more profitable. The problem, according to Blizzard, is that players are becoming bored with grinding content in between expansion packs. To stem the flow of gamers, Blizzard has offered everything under the sun minus the kitchen sink to bring back their ex-customers. So far, Blizzard has offered full upgrades to Cataclysm, free level 80 characters, a copy of Diablo III for subscribing for a full year, and more. To take care of what they see as the source of the leak, Blizzard has committed to less downtime between expansions and more content.

The latest numbers from Activision show World of Warcraft standing at 9.1 million subscribers, a ten percent drop from last quarter. Warcraft’s new expansion, Mists of Pandaria, launches later this year and hopes to stop, if not reverse, the exodus of players.

Despite this bad news, World of Warcraft remains the top subscription MMO by a wide margin.

(Source: Gamasutra)

The Old Republic Free To Play, Subscriptions Plummeted


Normally when I open an article with “to the surprise of absolutely no one,” I am exaggerating slightly. However, the announcement today that The Old Republic is heading to a free to play model should come as a surprise to absolutely no one with an internet connection and a finger on the pulse of Electronic Arts. Later this fall, The Old Republic will make its transition, allowing players to experience everything* that a galaxy far, far away has to offer. Players will have access to all eight classes, the complete story content, but will be limited in warzone and flashpoints, as well as space missions, travel functionality, and extremely limited access to the galactic trade network.

So why is Bioware suddenly choosing free to play? Well as the announcement puts it:

We feel that flexibility and choice in playing our game is important for all current and future players. For that reason, we began the exploration of expanding the game to include a Free-to-Play option.

Also, at the investor call today, Electronic Arts announced that subscription numbers dropped below one million (from the last reported figure of 1.3 million in May) but “well above” half a million. More specific subscription figures were not made available. Bioware heralded The Old Republic back in December as “one of the greatest and most ambitious achievements in video game history.”

(Source: The Old Republic)