In one of the most convoluted announcements in history.
Tag: Goblinworks
One Year Later, Pathfinder Online Still Hasn’t Secured A Buyer
The news on Pathfinder Online has been dead for the better part of the last year, and for pretty good reason: Nobody is left. It has been one year since we learned that everyone on the development team, sans three people, were laid off with CEO Ryan Dancey resigning his post and user acquisition virtually nonexistent. When you look at the company overall, their success (or lack thereof) isn’t exactly hard to pin down. An overly ambitious plan coupled with a monetization model that presumes a gaming population willing to pay a premium subscription price for a game that is in “early enrollment,” otherwise known as alpha.
Naturally the company is seeking a buyer or an investor and that process isn’t going so well. Acting CEO Lisa Stevens announced that she had received a signed letter from a company willing to take on Pathfinder Online and see it through to completion. This was, as those of you who follow the game will know, part of the end of the year announcement posted December 23rd, 2015. According to the post, acquisition was meant to be completed by March 1st, 2016. It never happened.
According to Stevens’ posts on the official forums, dated April 13th, things are progressing slowly. They are progressing, however.
Unfortunately, this one is taking longer than anyone wants, but is progressing nicely. I will let you know that Newcorp has been putting money towards the current expenditures for PFO while things are finishing up. They wouldn’t do that if they didn’t think it was likely to go through. Now is it a guarantee? No. Because if it was a guarantee then we would be moving forward. But it is likely. And they are behaving as it that is the case. They have even hired a real estate firm to start looking for office space for a studio up here in Seattle.
Stevens later clarifies that Newcorp is footing the bill for half of the operating costs each month. At the end of May, players were told that “the finish line is in sight.”
The pace has really picked up on the deal for NewCorp to take over Pathfinder Online. The finish line is in sight. We are hoping to give NewCorp a voice through the Goblinworks forums in the near future prior to the deal closing so that they can interact with the community and start to convey their vision for the game to you. Look for news about this in the coming weeks. The team here at Goblinworks is very excited about the future and would like to thank all of you for your support through this long process.
Those of you with calendars are well aware that the “coming weeks” has translated to nearly four months with no apparent further action. Over the past couple of months, Pathfinder’s acquisition announcement has been delayed time and time again, with the company more recently targeting September 1st, then September 9th, and now apparently September 23rd to give some news. These deals tend to be pretty shaky, despite the fact that Newcorp has enough interest to fund the game and keep it going for the past six plus months, but with these business deals literally nothing is guaranteed until the papers are signed and the checks clear. Up until that point, the deal could go sour at any moment.
I’ll leave you on a note of interest that a few players have pointed out to me. In about three months, Pathfinder Online hits the point where subscriptions from the highest backers on Kickstarter run out. I’m not going speculate on the progress of the business deal, but this seems like an important milestone when it comes to keeping the game operational.
MMO Fallout will update as soon as news becomes available.
Pathfinder Online Has Three Employees Left
Pathfinder Online, currently in early enrollment, has three employees left. In an announcement on the official website yesterday, Acting CEO Lisa Stevens revealed that the majority of the Goblinworks team has been laid off due to a lack of funds. The company is currently seeking outside investments in order to ensure that the game can make it to open enrollment, however right now the three employees and servers are being supported by the community.
Due to the commitment that you have made to the game, your current subscriptions are able to keep the core team employed and the servers live. We will continue to move the game forward with that team and keep the servers live as long as the continued financial support from the community is there.
The bad news accompanies even further bad news, that CEO Ryan Dancey has resigned his position due to personal reasons. Given Dancey voicing his disapproval of the community’s outreach efforts earlier this year, the news that Pathfinder is facing financial difficulty may not be all too surprising.
According to the news post, Pathfinder presently has enough funding to keep the servers up through September. Anything after that is wholly dependent on subscribers.
(Source: Pathfinder Online)
Pathfinder Online’s Recruitment Is Flat
Pathfinder Online is currently in “early enrollment” (read: alpha/beta) while charging a subscription, a combination that doesn’t exactly see customers falling over each other to sign up. Regardless, Goblinworks CEO Ryan Dancey took to the forums to express his disappointment in player recruitment being “almost zero.” He suggests that players head to other websites including Reddit, news websites, and the Eve community to openly discuss their activities.
Settlements that are committed to growing should have someone delegated to be visible in these places making regular posts and talking about the cool stuff their Settlement is doing. When the wider community sees activity and fun, that is a powerful attractant.
Dancey’s comments have been criticized by community members, pointing to the game’s early access state coupled with the subscription putting players off.
Ryan, I strongly feel that mass recruiting efforts now are premature. The kind of people we’d be able to pick up from the mainstream sites are people who will login for a week, see a game which is very immature, draw incorrect conclusions, and never come back. The longterm success of the game will be much better if we wait to recruit those people until we have a chance to actually keep them.
I think the real failure was in the original business planning by the people in charge. Seems like what they suspected was a MVP that the target audience would pay money for was grossly miscalculated. Maybe this would have worked 10 years ago.
I will not go and try to make the game look like a million, using sugar-coated words and focusing on telling the positive stories, while completely ignoring or downplaying the negative parts in front of other gamers. So I’m doing the best I can for GW, and that is, being silent.
(Source: Pathfinder)
Pathfinder Online Early Access Rates
Pathfinder Online recently entered Open Enrollment, meaning the price of admission has changed once again. Many seem to be under the impression that you still need to drop a good grand to gain entry, which was the case during the alpha stage.
Right now you can gain immediate access for $100 by buying the Early Enrollment pack. The package comes with three months of game time and other digital goodies. For those who can wait another month, there is a $50 pack that grants access beginning in February, and only contains one free month of game time.
Early enrollment should not be confused with open enrollment, which is not set to begin until January 2016. Also keep in mind that while the game is in early access, you are still required to pay a subscription.
Goblinworks does not consider this to be a beta period.
(Source: Pathfinder Online)
Pathfinder Online Early Access Coming Soon
Goblinworks has announced that open enrollment for Pathfinder Online will begin on September 15th. The open enrollment area is suited for at least twenty thousand active players, and to ensure that the game reaches those numbers, Goblinworks has accelerated all open enrollment packages to have access beginning the first month.
In addition, all early enrollment package owners will be invited to play in the alpha stage. The timing for alpha early enrollment will be announced soon. If you want access to early enrollment and haven’t purchased a package yet, however, you will need to buy in at the $50 level for access starting month 2 (October) or $100 in month 1 (September).
There are a few other announcements including premium items, base camps, and more. Check out the entire announcement at the link below.
(Source: Goblinworks)
Pathfinder’s Backing Of Elder Scrolls Online
Goblinworks CEO Ryan Dancey found himself in the news this week by penning an editorial defending The Elder Scrolls Online and the game’s planned subscription system. In the op-ed, Dancey states his belief that not only are subscriptions responsible for more than $100 million a year in the west, but that it is hard to imagine that the revenue from microtransactions even approaches 50% of that figure. Now Dancey’s figures are hardly scientific, but the overall point that he seems to be making is that the optimal route for MMOs (particularly Elder Scrolls Online) to take is to launch with a box price and subscription to recuperate development costs and then switch over to a system based in microtransactions with an optional subscription intact once it makes sense.
I remain convinced that the market is going to continue to support subscriptions for these games regardless of budget so long as the subscriptions are intelligently linked to a microtransaction model as well. The evidence of ongoing success with that model seems incontrovertible and the implication that there are millions of people happily paying for game subscriptions shouldn’t be controversial to anyone who digs into the numbers.
Whether or not you agree with Dancey’s conclusion, the editorial is still a great read. Check it out at the link below.
(Source: MMORPG.com)
Pathfinder's Backing Of Elder Scrolls Online
Goblinworks CEO Ryan Dancey found himself in the news this week by penning an editorial defending The Elder Scrolls Online and the game’s planned subscription system. In the op-ed, Dancey states his belief that not only are subscriptions responsible for more than $100 million a year in the west, but that it is hard to imagine that the revenue from microtransactions even approaches 50% of that figure. Now Dancey’s figures are hardly scientific, but the overall point that he seems to be making is that the optimal route for MMOs (particularly Elder Scrolls Online) to take is to launch with a box price and subscription to recuperate development costs and then switch over to a system based in microtransactions with an optional subscription intact once it makes sense.
I remain convinced that the market is going to continue to support subscriptions for these games regardless of budget so long as the subscriptions are intelligently linked to a microtransaction model as well. The evidence of ongoing success with that model seems incontrovertible and the implication that there are millions of people happily paying for game subscriptions shouldn’t be controversial to anyone who digs into the numbers.
Whether or not you agree with Dancey’s conclusion, the editorial is still a great read. Check it out at the link below.
(Source: MMORPG.com)
Pathfinder Online Meets Kickstarter Goal: 27 Days Remaining
You know with all this publicity that Pathfinder Online better launch and be the greatest thing since sliced black bread. Goblinworks still has 27 days left to their Kickstarter project for Pathfinder Online, and not only has the goal been met, it continues to be exceeded. One thousand people pledged over sixty thousand dollars so far, and the number continues to rise even as I write this article.
So, check it out. Pathfinder Online is a hybrid sandbox-themepark MMO based around the pen and paper game of the same name. By donating, you can gain access to some interesting rewards.
(Source: Pathfinder Kickstarter)
MMO Fallout 