News – Page 463 – MMO Fallout

Funcom's Third Quarter Finances

Funcom has released their third quarter results for 2013, and as usual the results are a mix of the good and the bad. Revenues in the third quarter amounted to $5.3 million, a decrease over the same time last year when The Secret World initially launched. A significant operating cost decrease combined with tax credits allowed for a $2.2 million cash flow compared to a slight loss in the previous quarter.

The main source of revenue for this past quarter came from The Secret World and Age of Conan, consistent with last quarter but lower than last year. Revenue in all games went down due to high profile game releases including Grand Theft Auto V. Work continues on the engine upgrade for Anarchy Online, and further initiatives are being pursued across all titles despite a relatively stable quarter for The Secret World and Age of Conan.

Funcom’s upcoming title, Lego Minifigures, is maintaining its development schedule, and was met with a positive response at its public showing in Cologne, Germany. The company expects lower revenue in the next quarter.

Star Citizen Calms Its Community

Christopher Roberts, of the Roberts Space Industries brand, had some damage control to do this past weekend. Apparently a PS4 devkit was spotted on the desk of one of the developers and some members of the Star Citizen community, being of sound mind and invulnerable to over-the-top reactions, assumed that it could only mean that after gathering twenty seven million dollars in pledges and donations, that Star Citizen was ditching its PC development and moving over to be a PS4 exclusive. A perfectly reasonable assumption, like that time I called the police on my neighbor because he said “have a good day,” which could only mean that he was planning on murdering me that night.

Thankfully, Roberts clarified that Star Citizen is still coming to PC and will not be “dumbed down” for consoles, although he isn’t exactly saying no to a next gen release.

As far as consoles go Star Citizen will never be on the PS3 or Xbox 360. As for the next gen consoles, PS4 and Xbox One, we have NO CURRENT PLANS, but my stance remains open and is consistent with the many interviews I’ve given -IF the platform holders (Sony & Microsoft) allow us to update the code and data without restrictions and odious time consuming QC procedures, IF they allow our community to openly interact with each other across platforms then I would CONSIDER supporting them.

His emphasis, not mine.

(Source: Star Citizen)

Glitch Assets Are Now Public Domain

Despite the failing of Glitch on a financial level, the folks at Tiny Speck have already cemented their place in our hearts. Rather than allow years of work to go to waste, the team at Tiny Speck has announced that all of the art assets (minus the logo and trademark, of course) have been relinquished to the public domain.

The entire library of art assets from the game, has been made freely available, dedicated to the public domain. Code from the game client is included to help developers work with the assets. All of it can be downloaded and used by anyone, for any purpose. (But: use it for good.)

You can find the library of assets at the link below. Hopefully the files are used for good.

(Source: Glitch HQ)

Flying Disabled Until First Warlords of Draenor Patch

Here at MMO Fallout, we stand by our belief that flying mounts are among the worst mechanics ever brought to the genre, and apparently we have friends at Blizzard who agree with us. From a consumer standpoint, it sounds pretty cool. For the developers creating the content in a zone, it messes with the normal flow and can make some areas entirely pointless. Instead of allowing players to trivialize the combat in Warlords of Draenor, Blizzard has announced that they intend to disable flying during the leveling process from 90-100 and have flying available again once the first major patch goes live. Why? I’ll let Bashiok explain:

Flying trivializes combat. A lot of people like to say we’re trying to force world PvP, or that we just really want people to look at the pretty trees we made, but those really aren’t the reasons that drive this same decision we’ve made every expansion. Flying allows you to escape or enter combat at-will. There’s a reason why flying isn’t allowed in dungeons and raids, or battlegrounds and arenas, and that’s because it would trivialize the core mechanic of the game in those areas – combat. For much the same reason it trivializes how content is approached in the outdoor world based on the simple fact that you can lift off and set down wherever you like.

As Bashiok points out, World of Warcraft is meant to be a guided experience and flying mounts render much of that moot, but this is the bed that Blizzard made and now they must lie in it.

(Source: World of Warcraft)

NCSoft Operating Profit Down 51% Over Last Quarter

NCSoft has released their financial statements for the third quarter of 2013 and the results are not so great. While sales dropped only 12% over last quarter, operating profit dipped 51% over the same period and pre-tax income similarly dropped 47%. Net income stands at a 23% drop over the previous quarter. In the report, NCSoft links the loss of profit due to the “lion’s share of Lineage in-game item sales in 3Q being carried over to 4Q.”

On the game side, Lineage saw a nearly 27% drop in sales over the last quarter, while Blade & Soul enjoyed 40% rise in sales attributed to the “Baek-chung” content pack recently released for the game. Sales for Lineage 2, Aion, and Guild Wars 2 all dropped over the previous quarter.

According to NCSoft, while labor costs remained flat, royalty and marketing expenses increased due to a license contract with the Baseball Players Association and the Wildstar marketing campaigns respectively. Other expenses included the relocation of the NCSoft headquarters, restoration of the Seoul offices, and office supplies.

(Source: NCSoft Corporate)

Automatic Veteran Rewards For Champions Online Lifetime Subscribers

As a token of thanks to players, Cryptic Studios has announced that anyone who purchases a lifetime subscription will receive all veteran awards immediately, regardless of how old their account is. This applies to all lifetime holders, old and new, and includes other exclusives like extra costume and character slots. Veteran rewards are issued every one hundred days and include items like exclusive titles, retcon coins, costume pieces, and more. Check out the full announcement at the link below.

Earlier this year, Cryptic North opened up to address problems in Champions Online and bring the game up a few notches.

(Source: Champions Online)

Trion World's New Trove Looks Strangely Familiar

Trion released this screenshot of their upcoming game Trove with the message “what will you find?” I found Waldo, what did you find?

(Source: Twitter)

PSA: Use Your Perfect World Codes Now

If I learned one thing from writing here at MMO Fallout, it is that publishers love consolidated launchers and stores. Steam, Origin, Uplay, iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Store, and even that evil decaying behemoth once known as Games for Windows Live. Perfect World Entertainment has joined the list of publishers with the introduction of Arc, an upcoming consolidated launcher for Perfect World’s games. Eventually everything will be moved over to the Arc Network, with a single client handling all of Perfect World’s game downloads and operations, code redemption, etc.

What is crucially important to this process is that keys issued before the transition will not be redeemable.

It is important to note that most keys that were issued before the initial transition will not be redeemable in the new system, due to an entirely new system being implemented. If you currently possess any keys or codes, we recommend redeeming them before the new website launch.

Check out the whole announcement at the link below.

(Source: Perfect World)

Allods Online Receives Massive Gold Sink

Allods Online has introduced quite an interesting money sink: Coupons! In a recent post titled Wind of Changes: Closer Look at Pure Soul, the team at gPotato details the new class change coupons. These coupons allow players to change their class, not to mention their gear, race, and appearance, with the click of a button. The catch? The coupons are placed on the auction house once per week, and only one coupon per class is available each week. How much do you really want to change your class? As Jerry Mcguire would say, show me the money!

Join the auction, and keep bidding until you have beaten all competitors! The precious coupon will be yours! Use it and you will be able to obtain a Core Morpher related to the chosen class. Players from the subscription server will receive it via in-game mail, whereas players from the Free-to-play server will acquire the Core Morpher in the Item Shop by redeeming the coupon they won from the Auction House.

Happy bidding.

(Source: Allods Online)

Star Citizen Just Won't Quit: $27 Million

Star Citizen has moves that just won’t quit, with the recent announcement that funding has surpassed twenty seven million dollars, or approximately one dinner for three at Red Lobster assuming you have a coupon. The milestone brings with it expanded development into the Banu technology. Who are the Banu?

At $23 million we dedicated additional resources to making Xi’An spacecraft a unique experience. At $27 million, we will expand that same thinking to the Banu! Starting with the merchant ship, the design team will expand Banu technology to offer players a completely different way of experiencing their universe.

So what’s next for the endless pile of money streaming into Roberts Space Industries? At $28 million, the team will add a new starter ship. At $29 million, the team will expand Squadron 42, a spiritual successor to Wing Commander and a single player game, with enhanced missions, more resources, and better design.

(Source: Roberts Space Industries)

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