http://www.penny-arcade.com/2006/03/01 The last two posts on that page. Here's some pics and quotes. I did have the story a little twisted but its still funny and valid. "I’ve been told that creative people simply don’t last long at SOE. I’ve heard so many horror stories from people in the industry who used to work at SOE or still languish there. The place comes off sounding like some kind of elephant graveyard where creative people go to die. With that said I have to admit that those sons of **CENSORED** have a sense of humor. Smedley sent me an email this morning that just said he’d sent me a package. I assumed it was a bomb but just a few minutes ago a man showed up and proclaimed that he “had our donuts”. That’s not something I expected to hear today. We followed him out to his truck where he showed us our 1,200 freshly baked Krispy Kreme donuts." and "Just an update on the 1,200 donuts situation. We were able to give all the donuts away. We gave some to the other businesses here in our office building. We also sent a few hundred over to the Seattle Children’s hospital for the staff there. Then we let our PAX enforcers come by and dig in. A few people have made the comment to me that it was nice of SOE to send us one donut for every subscriber they have. The other funny remark I heard was that this is the best product SOE has ever shipped. You guys are mean."
(( I don't have faith anymore. SOE is focusing on other games than MxO.
let's just enjoy what we have currently. Sad to say but MxO won't change.
I subscribed on a beta testing for an upcomming MMO.... MxO was not event listed in the questions "what MMO do you play actually" ))
Fondo wrote:I mean SOE can afford another Dev. I am sure the game itself is and was expensive but every subscriber pay atleast 10 dollars a month some even 15 so lets take the goledn middle, 12.50. Now lets take a guess and say that there are 200.000 users no thats a lot lets say 50000 that sounds preatty right. Now they each pay 12.50 a month that makes 625000 dolars a month. Lets say they need to spend about 500000 a month for repairs and emploiment and all those other things (thats HALF A MILLION) and you haf left 125000 dollars pure win. And this only with 50000 users. I think you can afford some more help.________Precisely.
I mean SOE can afford another Dev. I am sure the game itself is and was expensive but every subscriber pay atleast 10 dollars a month some even 15 so lets take the goledn middle, 12.50. Now lets take a guess and say that there are 200.000 users no thats a lot lets say 50000 that sounds preatty right. Now they each pay 12.50 a month that makes 625000 dolars a month. Lets say they need to spend about 500000 a month for repairs and emploiment and all those other things (thats HALF A MILLION) and you haf left 125000 dollars pure win. And this only with 50000 users. I think you can afford some more help.
________
Precisely.
MeretrixMeretric wrote:Fondo wrote:I mean SOE can afford another Dev. I am sure the game itself is and was expensive but every subscriber pay atleast 10 dollars a month some even 15 so lets take the goledn middle, 12.50. Now lets take a guess and say that there are 200.000 users no thats a lot lets say 50000 that sounds preatty right. Now they each pay 12.50 a month that makes 625000 dolars a month. Lets say they need to spend about 500000 a month for repairs and emploiment and all those other things (thats HALF A MILLION) and you haf left 125000 dollars pure win. And this only with 50000 users. I think you can afford some more help.________Precisely. well, to be more precise there's probably only 20-25k subscribers... it was 30k in july last year and probably less now. now considering they have to pay at least 1,000/mo per employee (except maybe janitors?) plus the server maintenance, there's not really much money left over... I'd guess the maintenance is at least 500 per server.. Then again, i don't know how many of those guys are actually subscribing, and not just a part of the station pass (meaning they're paying like 4$ each game). they don't need more devs, they need more customers. lol
Skill wrote:MeretrixMeretric wrote:Fondo wrote:I mean SOE can afford another Dev. I am sure the game itself is and was expensive but every subscriber pay atleast 10 dollars a month some even 15 so lets take the goledn middle, 12.50. Now lets take a guess and say that there are 200.000 users no thats a lot lets say 50000 that sounds preatty right. Now they each pay 12.50 a month that makes 625000 dolars a month. Lets say they need to spend about 500000 a month for repairs and emploiment and all those other things (thats HALF A MILLION) and you haf left 125000 dollars pure win. And this only with 50000 users. I think you can afford some more help.________Precisely. well, to be more precise there's probably only 20-25k subscribers... it was 30k in july last year and probably less now. now considering they have to pay at least 1,000/mo per employee (except maybe janitors?) plus the server maintenance, there's not really much money left over... I'd guess the maintenance is at least 500 per server.. Then again, i don't know how many of those guys are actually subscribing, and not just a part of the station pass (meaning they're paying like 4$ each game). they don't need more devs, they need more customers. lol What's the point of having more customers if they're going to leave the next day due to inactivity?
Canbus wrote:Skill wrote:MeretrixMeretric wrote:Fondo wrote:I mean SOE can afford another Dev. I am sure the game itself is and was expensive but every subscriber pay atleast 10 dollars a month some even 15 so lets take the goledn middle, 12.50. Now lets take a guess and say that there are 200.000 users no thats a lot lets say 50000 that sounds preatty right. Now they each pay 12.50 a month that makes 625000 dolars a month. Lets say they need to spend about 500000 a month for repairs and emploiment and all those other things (thats HALF A MILLION) and you haf left 125000 dollars pure win. And this only with 50000 users. I think you can afford some more help.________Precisely. well, to be more precise there's probably only 20-25k subscribers... it was 30k in july last year and probably less now. now considering they have to pay at least 1,000/mo per employee (except maybe janitors?) plus the server maintenance, there's not really much money left over... I'd guess the maintenance is at least 500 per server.. Then again, i don't know how many of those guys are actually subscribing, and not just a part of the station pass (meaning they're paying like 4$ each game). they don't need more devs, they need more customers. lol What's the point of having more customers if they're going to leave the next day due to inactivity? You should be asking what's the point of having more devs if they're going to leave next month because they can't be paid... In light of my experience to date playing MxO for a year, I have to say I am losing hope. Why? Well the game is stagnant; a stagnant product is sooner or later doomed and so it will unless a number of things are done but all unrealistic considering the state of play. Things *can* change (I think) My feeling is that SOE will be doing one of the following: 1) Slowly phase out MMORPGs support with time and drop the titles as the member base dwindle 2) Working on new products to compete with Blizzard and other company, phasing out less popular game as the member base dwindle 3) Keep the status quo and discontinue products as the member base dwindle Face it, all MMORPGs are destined to be discontinued as technology evolve, problem is, MxO will walk the "green mile" sooner than other games because of a poor start and bad luck/management/decisions. What do you mean by that? MMOs as a market are getting bigger... I love this game but harsh reality is difficult to ignore, even if like me, you like to live in denial. Shayel
Skill wrote:MeretrixMeretric wrote:Fondo wrote:I mean SOE can afford another Dev. I am sure the game itself is and was expensive but every subscriber pay atleast 10 dollars a month some even 15 so lets take the goledn middle, 12.50. Now lets take a guess and say that there are 200.000 users no thats a lot lets say 50000 that sounds preatty right. Now they each pay 12.50 a month that makes 625000 dolars a month. Lets say they need to spend about 500000 a month for repairs and emploiment and all those other things (thats HALF A MILLION) and you haf left 125000 dollars pure win. And this only with 50000 users. I think you can afford some more help.________Precisely. well, to be more precise there's probably only 20-25k subscribers... it was 30k in july last year and probably less now. now considering they have to pay at least 1,000/mo per employee (except maybe janitors?) plus the server maintenance, there's not really much money left over... I'd guess the maintenance is at least 500 per server.. Then again, i don't know how many of those guys are actually subscribing, and not just a part of the station pass (meaning they're paying like 4$ each game). they don't need more devs, they need more customers. lol What's the point of having more customers if they're going to leave the next day due to inactivity? You should be asking what's the point of having more devs if they're going to leave next month because they can't be paid...
SOE doesn't care. That is all.
$1000/month per employee? Come on, let's be realistic. Times it by 10 and I imagine you are getting closer to actual compensation. Why is it that players tend to think they are spending the big bucks($15/month) while SoE makes this machine work by paying their Devs 12k a year. I would imagine that compared to some of the companies I have worked for, SoE isn't neccesarily the cash cow people think they are.
I also think people are off-base when they say that people in the company don't care. I imagine they want their players to have fun because as long as they are, they will make money and be able to continue investment. Since I don't believe SoE makes tremendous profit due to continual investment, marketing and promotion hasn't been focused on. But who's to say that we know how to do it better? I don't think an MxO display in game stores will likely get the game any more attention. It would cost money too and that marketing budget would pull from the development one. Maybe that is their approach. I always thought they've had an'If you build it they will come" approach to marketing. Station Access players can still bleed into MxO and keep it alive. I don't think SoE is pulling the plug on anything.
