We Need to Talk about NCSoft...and what it means for MMORPGs
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- Опубликовано: 29 окт 2024
- #mmo #mmorpg
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Are Investors...or more importantly, Investor Pressure ruining games?
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massivelyop.co...
yna.co.kr/view/AKR20241021134500017
www.mmorpg.com...
wccftech.com/n...
www.ign.com/ar...
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Its just like Hollywood, they have to cater to the people with the money to make the film, and not the people watching.
It's not just you and it's not just gaming, investor focused capitalism is destroying customer trust and employee relations in nearly every industry across the board. Greed is killing everything.
Ironically if it wasn't for capitalist investors we wouldn't have a single AAA quality MMO.
The problem is some people expect services for free and the only way companies can deliver that is with pay to win. This is why all these years later I still prefer the buy to play plus sub model. The developer has to earn a profit somehow
@@nordy259 It could be that most people struggle with money while a minority has all the money. If money was more spread around, maybe we could go back to just paying for your game.
@@patlefofort I don't think a minority of the population are the only people with $60-$70.... 😂
@@marshallmcelmurry7087 About 80% of Americans work paycheck to paycheck. So yes, for a majority, 60-70$ is a lot of a single game.
Very much agreed
For some reason, they think we want easy, collection battle pass games. Choosing to skip out on the adventure, putting all the lore into a lootable book instead of the game. MMOs need to return to deep class play mechanics that depend on a group and a leveling experience that lets you enjoy your gear for more than a level.
That's not really what they think. They don't care about us, 99% of players, what they care about is little Billy who will buy 10 mounts if they push it enough, because he suffers from gambling addiction
@@CoreChamber real problem is triple AAA mmos are expensive and take time, and the genre is completely destroyed by blizzard, any salaryman that plays wow retail rn wont stand a chance in a "old fashion" mmorpg specially cuz they will fall behind and will complain about the game needint casual and qol which is basically agaisnt "old fashion" and let me tell u majority of mmorpg players are old 25yr old +++
Let's see if slow levelling is really what most people want. I don't know when Ashes of Creation will be released but during the alpha leveling is slow. I think impactful leveling is good, thats how MMOs used to be.
No they do not think that, they don't care what we want. They work for shareholders and investors, not you. They have legal obligations to those people and zero obligation to provide you with a product you want.
Wait till you find out what Blackrock, Vanguard, and State Street ask of gaming companies for money...
This is behind all of the madness. They own everything
What do they ask?, enlighten us oh almighty master.
@@Ozonencb Things you will adamantly mock and deny with all your might as if that makes them untrue.
@@joshanonline that expands my brain, i feel smarter now, thank you.
@@joshanonline So, examples lol?
As someone who has played NCsoft MMOs since the mid-2000s, this has been a long time coming. They've been rotting from the inside out for a very long time, and honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if they go the way of Ubisoft in the near future.
A group of us have found a way to genuinely enjoy a few of the latest MMOs, despite the predatory monetization schemes baked into their design. We treat them like our own "virtual tabletop fantasy worlds," totally ignoring the corporate-driven grind and pay-to-win hooks that have invaded the gameplay loop. Instead, we set our own goals, based purely on what makes adventuring in a fantasy world feel fun and authentic to us. These games often offer stunning visuals and expansive worlds, but they lack one thing that matters most to us: a soul. So, we add it ourselves. We cannot change why and how MMOs are made by game companies, but we sure as hell can change the way we play them."
Things like, Proximity voice chat and player to player trade would be so helpfull for that
That's the attiture of a true master of reality :) well done!
Games increasingly become more monetized gambling corporations. People completely ignored how Lucent, a cash shop currency, was used exclusively on the marketplace where people trade items and you can't get it by farming in game. The next step after this is completely replace gold for dollars, and like EA tried: game resources recharge with dollars. (ie mana recovery costing 1$ per 100 mana per second)
The technicality to stop dollars replacing gold is gambling laws but you can bypass that by a trade currency that won't turn back into dollars and used on anything with RNG. Done, law bypassed.
I view investors how South Park portrayed Canada asking for more money. They don't know how or where the money comes in but just want more.
Simply avoid all Korean mmo games. All same shit with different skins
Ahh yes, bc western mmos like WOW are so different with subs, xpacks and thousands in micro transactions
@dragonslayer7199 I rather pat my ffxiv sub every monthly amd pay for the expansion every to 2 or 3 years, and while we wait it everything is free, no p2w bs, il not a fan of WOW but that game is way a head of any korean mmo, granted korean mmo's have nice combat but that's all
Spare us with the FF rubbish. The game has become a lobotomized turd with so much rescinded from its prime, it's more like a game for the handicapped at this stage. The spaghetti code barely runs it's frontline mode adequately, I should know - I tried to help them repair it long ago. Korean base coding is far beyond the west, they suffer at the publishing and monetization level primarily, which invariably effects the end product and release frame. Little more.
Tbh, Throne & Liberty is fun. I've got about 120 hours in it so far and enjoyed myself. Once it fizzles, I'll find something else, but this was good while it lasted.
Amazon already cheated and screwed up players with 2 badly managed releases, that's why most of us avoid games they release.
I still play the same game I played 25 years ago... Everquest... albeit on Project Quarm servers now but I still play it almost every day. There has been nothing... not a single game in all that time that has been able to keep my attention for as long as it has. I've strayed away from it with ESO and World of Tanks and Warships but nothing has ever kept me like Everquest.
I'm a VIP pledger for Pantheon Rise of the Fallen. My hope is that one day this game takes over for Everquest... hopefully before I get too old to play games (I'm 50 years old as I type this). I gave my money because I believe in the power of community and in the developers of Pantheon's ability. In short, I hope the future of gaming is in Pantheon or Ashes of Creation or Monsters and Memories... cause outside of those three MMOs the list of games I really wanna invest my time in is pretty bleak.
Korea have always been about monetization over fun, this is nothing new. NCSoft have canceled many MMO's that were fun, because they didn't make enough money. After Tabula Rasa I swore to never play another of their games, and this is why.
But T&L is fun.
The gamers should become the investors then, so they don't need investors and investors will end up losing even more money not being an investor.
This is the case everywhere; Blizzard? Down the tubes when bought by Activision, WoTC? Down the tubes when bought by Hasbro. The list goes on. Most companies turn to trash once the focus moves from a philosophy or artistic vision that they could focus and control as a privately held company, on to, raising the stock to keep investors happy as a now publicly held property. This by the way is legally required, as it is required by law that all efforts are made to improve stock price, or investors can sue. So yes, going public, or being acquired by a publicly held parent company, absolutely changes the entire focus of the business. This is seen in every industry, across the board. Want to watch a developer you previously loved die? Wait for it to go public, or be acquired, guaranteed.
This is why middle tier private companies, and indies, are where the hit products are coming from these days, and the bigger companies are producing garbage. These companies are, at least for now, the optimism you asked for. At least until they blow up with a smash hit. Then perhaps they will sell off to a bigger corporate entity or go public themselves, wherupon they too will turn to crap. But new ones will rise to take their place, and the cycle will continue.
You can't compare games that were released during covid with player count compared to games now. Every online industry is showing the same massive numbers 2020-2022 with a massive down for their current projects released in the last 2 years
Investors are ruining everything. The top paid person at a game company should be the developers, the top people at a car dealership should be the salesman, the top paid people in a movie or series should be the actors and directors. Instead, the top paid people in companies are people who sit in an office debating who to fire so they could make more money (by absorbing their salary into their own)
without investors you wouldn't have a game.
This is reality. Its sad, harsh or whatever but thats how the world have been for centuries. 😅
@@Katannaaa i just wish people were more thankful and less negative.
Short term gains over long term profit is a very recent thing from the last 10-15 years. The boomers are getting closer to the end of their life and they want to hoard as much wealth as possible at everyone else's expense.
@@TheLotroNerd absolutely agree people nowadays will always look for fault even if it’s unjustified.
It’s a free quality MMO. F2P players like myself loves the fact I can sell items to on the auction house and earn premium currency. The other day, I got a rare drop from a boss with my guild.
I made 14,000 lucent ( premium currency) that’s equivalent to over 200 dollars! That alone is enough for me to keep playing.
@@10thArchon I've made 8k so far on auction house
@@DeeTeez that’s great! Sounds like you are having success with the AH. I just got lucky that one time.
This is more about the rest of the company and the push into mobile which makes up 3/4ths of the revenue and how TL didn't make a big enough splash to overcome that leading to more investor pressure, layoffs, restructuring...etc. As well as two cancelled games so far.
You wouldnt be able to "make 200 Dollar" if no one else would pay into the game (whales) and in additon they ROB anyone that sell stuff by around 25% of the "real money currency" That WILL lead to a permantent NEED of spending real money into the game to keep the wheel spinning, If the whales got everything and they stop paying, Lucent will get lesser and lesser so.
@@Redbeardflynn Completely true, aion 2 is stated to be a pc/console/mobile title which we'll get more information on in Q1 2025. You can incorporate pc and console for practically the same experience but the second you make the game available to mobile users you are going to sacrifice the pc experience in content and gameplay.
Keep up the good work. MMOs are in trouble because the developers have not created a “game” in almost over 10 years. Modern gaming is about repeat transactions….not gaming. Look at recent successful games? Warhammer did an amazing job!…and just wait till POE2 comes out. Devs that make games are successful…devs that make platforms for transactional purposes fail. Personally I stick with emulators and older games as I find them more immersive and enjoyable by respecting my time.
Invested around 500$ in Throne and liberty and today I have uninstalled it. Guild, guild zergs etc. ruined whole servers. Sadly.
What you're saying now is why I never bothered to try the game. Kanon is hyping people up making people think the game is perfection but he hid the fact that the game is toxic and dying swiftly in Korea.
When Kanon was answering questions on his stream, someone asked a question "Can you play this game solo or at your own pace". He struggled to answer the question and answered it with lies and partial truths. He said "The game is guild focused, you HAVE to be in a guild to make the best of the game, being in a guild is what this game is a about, you can play alone but it's not recommended" And then in terms of playing at your own pace, unlike BDO, FFXIV, or GW2 for example, you can play at your own pace and still easily catch up with the crowd of players. In TnL I hear, the game is mega gatekept, and with guild Zergs being a thing and gatekeeping content, good luck getting things done, because Ive been hearing lots of bad things about big 150-300 player alliances working together just killing everyone for their own amusement and bullying and saying "It's a feature of the game, deal with it or just uninstall"
its just waiting until siege wipes them out as well
@@boneylockz3967 I dont mind being in guild. But naive people who don't know better do not know that guild can setup that gear, weapons, etc. can be looted only by guild master... Disgusting.
I quit 1 week after hitting max lv. I had my fun whit it, but as a solo player, and the lack of time to play, i couldnt get past 2.4k gear score whitout grinding. Maybe i just handled it the wrong way, but was never invested 100% in the first place
@@ElusiveClit thats just sad. blues are up for grabs on most guilds in my server and purples whoever gets it keeps it or donates. Sounds like you were just in a really shitty guild. Me personally Im just playing my own game with the random guild event they call us for, slowly waiting for siege and bigger guilds to destroy the ones gatekeeping because trust, that will happen
I really like Throne. I tried to go back to new world and can't.
Same here, but I still find myself missing how amazingly well done the audio for New World is. It gets you involved in the world so fast, the sound of people mining ores from far away, or how, when entering a cave, you could feel every single cue sound change slightly to resemble the echo that should be present in that place. It was just so well done.
Im just starting, is it too late to XP ?
I will do all solo or find groups you think ?
@@bobjj6602 In terms of leveling, This game doesn't go out of it's way to make you play with other people like you would in other MMOs. You have dungeons at the usual levels 20-30-40-50, and you usually find groups for that in just a few minutes.
The endgame is fun though, lot's of instances to play with other people, and guild events that require a lot of players, so I'm sure you'll find groups easily for those things.
They keep making the same game...people are bored.....grind to max level hardcore raiding or Hardcore PVP...the vast majority of players will never see 90% of the content.
So glad I never even bothered to try throne and liberty. I had a feeling it would be another greedy mmo that eventually be abandoned. It’s only a matter of time until their players leave due to bad decisions made by the company.
I'm in the vfx film industry, and same thing. Big business men are laying off artists and shutting down studios, then moving opening up shop in places where it's cheaper but doesnt have the same skill level or double downing on AI just so they can make a little bit more money. It's crazy how greedy they are. I just want to make art for people to enjoy at a studio with a team and make money doing it
sad days for gamers.
NC Soft has been dropping the ball for twenty years. How are they even still in business at all? NC Soft West is probably the worst managed gaming company in America.
Sorry to disagree but it is monetization. When you build a game around wanting people to spend money you make decisions about game design that are not in the players best interest. They are basically producing incomplete games that you need to constantly spend money on. And gated content is just absolutely ridiculous. You can only do this one time a week and the only other way to upgrade is to spend money. Make a GOOD game with no ptw and people will play it. New World just wasn't a great game, it had major identity crisis.
what I don't understand is how any game could possibly require millions and millions of dollars to make. I literally don't understand where the money goes, how it's spent, whose getting what size of paycheck and why? I feel like the pipeline for making games has grown so obtuse that they spend time and money on things that don't really add much to the game. If I were to do it, I would make a smaller version of Everquest. No fancy animations, no bullshit fluff, basically make Everquest meets Minecraft and that's pretty much all we want. I play TaLiberty for like 3 minutes before it was garbage. New world, garbage in three minutes, Black dessert same thing. Action style is GARBAGE. Make a world, make some mobs, fuck quests, give me like 4 starting classes and let us LIVE IN THE WORLD
Its all a money scam. The company borrows tens of millions of dollars, hiring people who pretend to be making a game, after a decade they release some garbage that will be shut down in three months. But the execs paid themselves millions for a decade off money borrowed by a company that will just go under and disapear.
Heck yeah. Do you know about Evercraft Online yet? Might be up your alley.
GGG games is a gem at this state. Poe 2 will prove that!
Frankly, what has led to all of this breakdown has been the F2P model, which relies on aggressive monetization of some sort because only about 5% (if you're lucky) ever pay. If you remember what Larian said, it was that the contract between them and the player was that they provide good content, and the player buys it. But F2P break that, in that in the West, you can't charge for anything substantive to the game otherwise it is viewed as P2W. The only other thing to charge for is therefore cosmetics, and you have to crank those prices because of the relatively few people who buy. Of course, for MMOs the alternative is going back to the old sub model (i.e., $150/yr to play). GW was the only one to try to rely on a single initial purchase.
I'm torn about monetization models. IMHO, subs are the most "fair" to both the devs and the player. You pay, they provide content across the board, and not just cosmetics. But subs are limiting because most people can't afford to have multiple subs due to the grindiness of MMOs (or any GaaS game). As I mentioned above, F2P leads to either P2W or exorbitant cosmetics (both in price and quantity). B2P (like GW) is kinda like a yearly half-sub, and to me, leads to a lot of dev risk because you have huge swings in costs and return.
But the other problem with subs is... well... let's face it, most players don't want to pay it, or a box price. For example, Concord, which from reading most reviews, was not a technically flawed live-service game. And their model was B2P with no MT (at least to begin). And it drew crickets, and got shut down in 2 weeks. What came up a lot was that it wasn't really anything new, and that it wasn't visually pleasing enough. So people were also saying that it should have been F2P to get a playerbase, but then it would need MT.... (On the other hand, it didn't get a lot of interest in its free betas either, so :shrug:). So, it seems to me that if you try to monetize "fairly" nowadays with either a box price or sub, a game has a severe head wind. The "collapse" of the AAA MMO was due to, IMHO, the sub model becoming unattractive which at the time made the big players reticent to commit. Nowadays, though, F2P and aggressive MT (particularly on mobile) is looked at more favorably, but the games that do the best at that are very P2W (i.e. mobile).
If a game is going to cost $100 mil or more (sometimes much more) to make, it needs to promise an ROI to get people to fund that development. Even if it's only say, $10 mil, in the past that was often either fronted by a publisher, or by a VC. And VCs had a lot of influence on game development too, but it was very behind-the-scenes, which often led to an earlier release than it should have been.
TL;DR I guess is that MMO players should have an expectation to pay as much for an MMO as for any other SP game for a given amount of playtime. To expect it to be free, frankly, is bad for the genre.
Welcome to late-stage capitalism. Next stop, oligarchy!
I think it is a big problem but I also think there's no way around it. AA/AAA Games are just too expensive to make. We COULD play $10 indies developed by 2 guys in their basement for the rest of our lives, but I didnt spend on a powerful PC to do that.
It's a vicious cycle for sure.
When your focus is making money over making games, you lost the game.
and at the same time Factorio Space Age was released. Am I worried about the games industry? Nah, this is just a cycle, the good indie studios get gobbled up and become AAA, then over time that AAA implodes on itself and the staff all move on to new things, build something new and can add on their resume they worked for the so and so AAA studio.
These rapidly increasing profit expectations will only lead to scam-like games, but not only the consumer will be cheated, but also the employees themselves. Employees will be laid off after 1-2 years making it harder to get better skills and promotions, quality assurance will be cut or outsourced to the client. Overall, the industry will shrink, lose innovation and fall behind the next big global market innovations and trends. I see more and more people giving up their gaming hobby and focusing more on real-world experiences, quote: "I don't have time to waste on that." And that's not surprising, as there are more and more games without meaningful or immersive gameplay or story.
Very insightful video. Whether players like it or not, at the end of the day, gaming is a business. Someone wants to make money. Game developers don’t just get to make the games they or players want. They have to develop games that the investors want.
Actually I think the problem at NCSOFT is that, yes they have been VERY PREDATORY for about 10 years now, especially with the Lineage series which has been their bread and butter. That is how much of an impact the Lineage series has in the east. You can say the west has WoW but the east has LIneage. The problem is that NCSOFT got REALLY GREEDY and heavily monetized this popular title and has now turned it into shit over the years and many people in the east has come to HATE NCSOFT because of their predatory practices. Not to mention that they haven't made a good game for a very long time now. I think maybe Aion was the closest to a "good" game they last produced. So, you are right that the investors are looking for a return on their investment, BUT I think that is NOT the full story. I think a major part of that investment is that they saw the NCSOFT of the past that was a great gaming studio that produced originals like Lineage and Aion and was hoping they would keep on producing good games. But, no, they went in the opposite direction. So that is the double wammy. Losing money and making BAD games.
Don’t worry, this way of doing business will backfire on them; it won’t last long in my opinion... Players aren’t stupid and many are already realizing who the good guys are and who the bad ones are.
All businesses now adays suffer from underpaying their employees and over paying their managers and owner greed. cutting upper management is almost always a good thing, I wish Activision would do that, cutting the frontlines is idiotic, they're the people actually doing anything.
I dont think this sort of (negativity) helps people gain or create more jobs. NOr continue the lifespan of the game.
I think NCSoft doesn't have the trust of the consumers and they're also trying to release globally while being wrapped up in Asian approaches (grind, grind and more grind). More monetization would just lead to a shorter time period before nose diving; it would solve nothing.
Other games are heavily monetized but it doesn't FEEL bad. NCSoft games monetization and game update schedule has felt so draining and overall bad. I experienced that with Blade and Soul and I'm usually a dolphin gamer. Contrast that with Mihoyo - I just don't usually feel bad giving them money and I am EXCITED when they release an update. NCSoft updates (except GW2 which I think ArenaNet is making most of the decisions there so they are OK) for their past games just made me feel bad. Made me feel like I wasted my money because they put yet another goal post too soon that you would need to be whale level to keep up. You could barely do current content and they'd already drop the next content and whatever you were doing before is DEAD CONTENT. Cause everyone is only trying to do the latest content.
You know what? After I just wrote that last paragraph, I realize that monetization has lead to far too many MMOs over the last years focusing on a WOW-type model of content where ONLY latest dungeon/raid/content is of any relevance and it has lead to TERRIBLE GAMES. So much content becoming meaningless that everything eventually feels stale because you're just running 2-3 pieces of content, period. Maybe for youtubers and streamers it makes no difference (because you guys no life rush anyway), but for casual players of an MMO, it leads to boredom and frustration. And the frustration feels worse when you realize they've placed p2w mechanics that would trivialize your frustration but to what end - to solve the current puzzle even faster and be bored for ... longer???
If a company is going to bother making an MMO, they need to keep their eye focus on the loops - short term loop, long term loop, and making them LESS REPETITIVE AND BORING. Stop throwing away content 3-6 months after it's out! You're just exhausting both developers AND players.
There is alot of shit talksbout throne and oh liberty online. I have not seen many positive videos or reviews. I'm enjoying the game. It is what you would expect from a well polished Korean mmorpg. Coming from BDO or Maplestory this game feels good
Its the genre in general. Tons of negativity in the space. Take it from another content creator, we almost never get to see positivity and we when talk about it, we get backlash or small views.
I think that's kind of the whole point. It won't matter in the end of players enjoy the game because those arent the metrics investors are looking at. They're looking at a portfolio and seeing numbers go up or down. Player satisfaction isnt as important as player expenditure.
@@Redbeardflynn it really sucks to be passionate about a new game nowadays. I too enjoyed Embers like you but…sheesh I feel so bad for those guys.
@VagrantVideos haha yeah some of the worst hate I've gotten has been about being excited for games. It is what it is though. I feel for embers too. Those are passionate devs doing their best.
shareholders basically killed of Bungie ... and Destiny 2 .. so yeah I agree !!! they always want a quick return on their money .. rather than a 10y plan hehe
Make a good mmo, no pay to win ! make 5 € for skin ... profit ! It's not rocket science .
i lasted a week in throne and liberty. i had a lot of issues. to name a few #1 world events sucked unless u were a specific builds because u cant tag anything to save ur life. failed many events because there was 100s of people and i couldnt tag anything. #2 end game loop got boring fast 8 dungeons that are not super complex and can clear ur daily cap in less then an hour with a half way decent group #3 pvp for me was very one side we were either one shotted or one shotting. seems there was no balancing . #4 the amount of battle pass type systems sucked (over all store i felt wasnt horrible tho seemed on par with most games). investors need to understand if i like a game i can say for myself ill gladly spend money on a game. in this case i didnt so they didnt make any money from me and i cant imagine i was the only one
The bad part is that it will be worst in the future
Yes, it’s just how things are, NOW, and it’s ruining many games, it’s a good example of how excessive shareholder greed can destroy a franchise/industry with NCSoft being a prime example…
Rich man is mad because he is slightly less rich, and the utlra rare mount he wanted did not drop after buying 100 loot boxes.
SOMETHING POSITIVE: Watching the FFXIV community rebuild itself on Bluesky away from the doomscrolling, no-block, AI-scaping dumpster fire that was the corpse of Twitter has been a joy over the last week.
This is why I'm going back to much simpler times and playing strictly older games or indie games and staying away from MMOs for the time being.
Such a shame to hear NC is struggling. Throne is one of my favorite games since subscription based MMOs, love the design and artificial ceilings. Big bummer if this doesn’t last
that's Y i plan to stay a modder.. i hate corpo slimes🧐
I like New World more then Throne and Liberty...Prove me wrong
no one can! What you like is up to you. Like what you like and enjoy yourself.
just normal capitalism coming to its late stages
It's true, but communism would be worse for gamers so there is no choice
@@Kiyonde there are more system then communism or capitalism. And also I am pretty certain that communism wouldnt be bad for gamers. Remember true communism never ever existed. The ccp, bolsheviks etc. They didnt have communism. So how do you if communism is bad for gamers eventhough we never had that system EVER to begin with ? Who told you that in communism people won't have "free will" ? Now why would someone in there right minds ever support communism when its about not having freewill ? And if you say communism has dictatorship what about todays dictatorship running capitalism ? Doesnt that make capitalism worse ? If you say in communism the government will own everything and people wont have shit to say. Isn't that fascism ? the only communism I know it exist is in a scifi movie startrek. If you like startrek, you like communism. Bc in startrek money is worthless, people dont get paid in salary. The philosophy of most of rhe startrek character are communists, they work not for money but bc they want to. Everything a human need are met for everybody. This americancapitalist propaganda is really eating dumb innocent people alive.
@@OmDesk the problem is that these gaming development companies need huge funding and the government most likely wouldnt support those, since gaming most likely considered more harmful than useful. So I think there would be some gaming company out there but they would create less advanced games then these now.
Living in China, it's hilarious reading your opinions on our systems of Government. You're like infants. When you don't know what you're talking about - keep the cake hole closed.
@@OmDesk True capitalism also isn't being practiced, so dunno what you mean.
Capitalism is just private ownership of goods and businesses.
Any economic system works if people play by the rules and work in solidarity, but that's rarely the case.
as someone who's getting into game dev, i hear a lot of "dont attempt a mmorpg" and understandably. its a massive undertaking that i dont think a small team has any business attempting if they care about player experience and are smart enough to consider cost to work ratio. probably why you see more FPS/survival/sandbox style games being the largest projects attempted by indie devs.
my own passion project borders on mmorpg but im attempting something unique and looking for ways to offload a lot of the world building to auxiliary systems. i'll eventually make a kickstarter but after i have a proof of concept and maybe after i apply for a epic games mega grant. XD
mega grant kinda sus tho, sounds like they are farming indie devs for creativity with how they define the criteria.
but to another point of the video, i think indie devs are mostly in small teams is because everyone needs money and like i mentioned earlier there is the consideration of cost to work ratio meaning larger companies need bigger budgets. then the icing on the cake is that the economy is doing horribly world wide and server hosting isn't cheap.
It's the same with a lot of companies where investors have become more important than customers, which is literally biting the hand that feeds you. Let the games experts make the best games, let players buy & enjoy the game and the money will flow. It's not just gaming that is broken at the moment, it's capitalism. If GW3 goes the way of EQ3, it will be very sad indeed!
We as Gamers, as a Community EVEN as Society need to PUNISH this behaviour .... We had a saying here, "Customer is King" .. these days, its sounds like from middleage ... We get foolt and played and but we are so addicted that we dont say no anymore, we are "thirsty" for every new mmo hoping its get better as the last one but nope....
The thing is. If you have money these days, Investment is NO RISK anymore, but that was the DEAL If you are investing "wrong" then you CAN LOOSE money, but the Industry and the Lobby changed the laws and more so that every investment is a granted so they invest more and more and make more and more money and cause the stupid way our Moneysystem works, If you have mo0ney it will grow on the shoulders of the poor .... AND NO Im not s stupid lefty I just see the imbalance and this will get worse and worse.
Amazon is saying they are losing a lot of money, not many are buying the pay to win stuff. They now consider this a major loss.
they don't know that real gamer will grind 24/7 then spend it on pay2win lolz hahahah
Very well done. The root problem was the change in Lineage 2 to microtransaction hell. It spiraled out of control from there.
On a specific note, TL would make more money if they simply had a monetized Lucent based transmog and dye system of in game items, instead of only having a couple lame $20 shop cosmetics...mmo end game is fashion.
Unfortunately, I have to fully agree with you here ^^; There are some exceptions with the well established games like FF XIV or WoW, but for new games, i do not see that any large developer/publisher will make a game that is developed for the fun of players. On the other hand...who cares. We have things like Pantheon, Everquest 2 Origins, Monsters and Memories, etc. SO basically a good bunch of alternatives. Yes, they are not as pretty and polished as maybe the AAAAAAA games are, but to be honest, i would always take a Everquest 2 above Throne and Liberty or New World. But i am old and played all the old games back then. I would also take Panthen over them, because atmosphere and gamepla, community and fun is way more important then a pretty screenshot. Is this positive enough for you? ^^;
Ya for sure lots of people forgot it’s more about what you enjoy. Like hell even in wow small group I play with 4 out of 7 of the group bought the new 90 buck mount. It makes me sick that blizzard even put it out but they still don’t deserve that kind of support from how they treat their players and how much trouble they still have every patch
Its like married with kids "build it and they will come" its not harder than that.
I prefer to buy the game and pay a membership than this whales spending 25k dollars on maxing on the first week. T&L already lost 1/3 of those 300k+ players.
As long as the quality remains with good events and updates then a bit of greed is fine for what they've made thus far but knowing when to draw a line is key. This is the first MMO I really want to get into so hopefully they don't screw it up, also MMO's don't have the same scale of players in america/europe and don't have nearly the same amount of appeal either so doing things in america/europe that you do in korea isn't gunna work at all. 300k players is great over here btw considering black ops just dropped
I see it as a good thing to be honest (obviously not for the people that get sacked, but for the industry in general and in the long run).
Studios need to understand that associating with shareholders will only kill them. I see the whole AAA collapse as a good thing because the industry is so fucked up right now it needs a full reset.
Coming from another genre, i think the mmo community is so negative and hard to please. Everyone keeps claiming pay2win when you can grind for the premium currency.
@@Dranzel *pay for
Don’t forget that this game is also Geo locked, my friends and I really wanted to play but alas we got a nope
Throne and Liberty will not last. It's Cash shop is flawed lol. It's like, why should I spend money on these things.. I remember my first day in Black Desert Online and Guild Wars 2, I've spent at least 200 bucks on Quality of Life things in the Cashshop. TL doesn't have those, plus the game is free. So good luck to you TL gamers lol.
have they ever thought that happy players are happy to spend?
They want the money now, quick turnaround and need to make enough money to keep investors happy now or they will move on to something more lucrative.
I humbly agree and sadly this is now playing out in wow in the past few weeks. I think they laid off through microsoft gaming too many people at blizzard. so you should also comment on this since this is exactly the eerie similar issue.
You have to separate bad decision making of management from the intentions of investors. Investors are normal people with 401k's or other investment accounts. What you are hearing is a bad management team making excuses by blaming 'investors'.
It's easy to demonize investors despite the fact that without them there would be no projects from some studios otherwise. That said, being beholden to them above all else is obviously short-sighted and more likely to result in poor outcomes in the long run.
The "target demographic" can tell when it's being manipulated strictly for profit, and the backlash is often swift and harsh.
Ok, man. You asked for it. STOP WHINING! There you go, some optimism.
Now, love your work and for the record I have been playing MMOs since 1998. One thing that I have seen in everyone is that they all "need" money. Remember that Business, that's with a capital B, normally thinks money first. Be that for cashflow, payroll, or additional capital investment in the company. There isn't a window that they look out of that doesn't have a monitary impact ingrained within the pane. Sometimes you have to look with a magnifying glass to see it, but it is always there.
Back in 1999 I remember thinking that $15 a month was a great entertainment investment. Well, better make that $30 as I had a spousal unit to think of as well. But it's still entertainment. In your home how many devices entertain you? Not just gaming, but entertainment.
As of this moment you have 3 different gaming systems out there; mobile, console, and PC. I have 2 of those 3, but I'm old school. I use mobile for communication. Not everyone has a computer at home, but almost all homes have at least 1 mobile device. Most have more...sometimes many more. Mobile is the way forward, I am sad to say. The next big thing will need to include mobile to earn a marketshare, me thinks.
I am not sure you have ever read Snowcrash, by Neal Stephenson, but it's a very interesting book. It was published in 1992, which means it was probably written in 1990 or earlier. It it truly scary how accurate that book is about things today. We don't have some of the things in the book, but it's spot on in most cases. As devices become smaller and input devices more flexible, I can easily see you carrying your gaming rig on your person. That's almost what you have today.
Don't worry about gaming, MMOs or otherwise. We are creatures of habit and there are a lot of addicts out here. Where there is a will, that will always be a way. Or to say it differently, an addict will always need their fix. And Business will always want to give customers something to get paid. Oh, yeah, as written in several other books, TANSTAAFL.
It is a problem,good news is private servers exist. maybe one day game companies can learn from them.At least for EQ and WoW,other games to follow i'm sure.
Oh my! Imagine my shock! Another video claiming mmorpgs are dying. I never saw that since 2008. What a delightful insight.
I'm not :) I actually think the genre can do well, this is about not just MMOs but Gaming, specifically when they're coming from publicly traded companies. Even have a series on this channel called "MMOs Aren't Dead"
That's why we don't hear so much from content creators about other " MMOS" over 2 years of playing the same game... And that's why we can't have nice games, cause we don't have 1k to spend on a monthly basis. I hope they don't ruin throne.
I would have loved to see Lineage 3, with a monthly sub....with some basic improvements on L2.
While I think you are mostly right, maybe this is a good thing.
It tells me players are tired of the themepark focused MMORPG genre and want a true next generation game. Unfortunately, these types of games take years to develop so no company is going to take a chance on something a small group of consumers want. And make no mistake, true MMORPG players are generally a small market.
Not sure why my comment keeps getting removed by youtube.....
goes to show how dense investors are and how shitty they are at their investing - cause if you were truely smart about it youd put your money into a studio you trust to make a good game and then youd be fucking out, letting them do their thing, monitoring it via quaterly reports but thats it, you cannot interfere with the process of developing the game, cause youre not a game dev, youre an investor. Every decision you make is gonna be money focused, but its gonna make the game a lifeless shell thats maybe gonna throw off some money short term. If you offered me 10.000 bucks right away or 100.000 bucks in 2 years, id take the 100.000 bucks in 2 years. as Larian said - the game that makes you the most amount of money, is a fun game that millions of people play and not just 20.000 hardcore elitists who spend their monthly savings on the game.
I know that if I won lotto today, I'd buy rights for asherons call tomorrow. And I'd start a new game developement company the 3rd day to make it
comparing new world and lost ark to throne and liberty, id say throne and liberty stands above the other two so i see progression in making better games but i agree how they focus on the wrong things money-wise. also i heard throne and liberty was suppose to be optimized for mobile like how new world wasnt optimized for thousands of ppl on servers. im glad both games are where they are at now. new world was my first mmo & lost ark my 2nd. something great & enjoyable in the time of covid. i love the developers and indie company of baluders gate but its sad to say, most game developers arent trying to make triple A games anymore & its more about money grab/catcha systems or simpler mobile games. im just glad we have another mmo where i can play with friends
T&L is a pretty good game, if it had a lot of the bugs worked out and didn't feel clunky I wouldn't mind having a monthly fee like WoW... but right now hell nawl.
TaL looks concerning from the outside never having played it. Looks like it might be like the early days of Elder scrolls online, which STILL has class breaking exploits they refuse to fix, and who I will always boycott. I am looking forward to soulframe from the creators of warframe, they are a respectable company with a respectable product.
Meh....easy solution. Declare bankruptcy. Investors can go play with their bell ends somewhere else, and we can go play GTA6.
In my opinion 330k concurrent players is pretty good for a hardcore guild based pvp game
Unfortunately the investors and the boards beholden to them don't seem to agree. At least not enough to make up for the collapse of their mobile. And there in lies the problem.
I think you have to factor in a bit of burnout as it relates to New World and Lost Ark numbers. Both those gams had extreme hype behind them especially Lost Ark. New World was a complete mess really until its first free DLC. Factor in things like mounts not being put into the game until years later and you have a game that jumped the shark and did a backflip while it was up there. Lost Ark was a beloved game in Korea, and it was only better in the global release. The downfall of that game was even though Amazon Games attempted to make it not so pay to win in the west it ultimately became the only way to play the game even semi casually. Throne and Liberty is different. The game universally has not been well received. The game throughout its life cycle even up to the global launch has seen an extreme makeover. The game we have today in the West is pretty good and definitely far less pay to win than Lost Ark. The big problem we have here is the game is a Korean MMORPG and it is on life support over there. The game is infinitely more popular Globally than it is in Korea. With all the bad press surrounding Throne and Liberty it is not surprising the numbers are not comparable to the other games mentioned above. Personally, I think Throne and liberty is one of the best MMORPG to release in long time the problem will be if a Korean company will continue to support a product that is not popular in their home country. The best-case scenario is a deal where Amazon Games takes over the entirety of the game in the West. If something like that doesn't happen chances are the game will be done in about five years with NCSoft moving on to other projects.
Game development companies had to expand 5 fold about 10 years ago. And in doing so expanded without having funding to do so and now they are having to try and keep up with there debt and everything they started out intending to bring to people ie fun laughter and an escape all went out the window and they changed there attitudes to how can we make as much off them as possible. And has evolved in to predatory practices like fomo and limited time sales and as you see in t&l now you have to trade in game with real money. Even though if they turn off servers you lose the items you have paid for. Wonder if a shop sold you an item but when the store closed removed it from you would people still be OK with that. And from someone who quit a aaa company due to there practices ill never buy in to any of it.
Big game, downloaded a long time. Looked nice, quests were ok. Got fast run and glide flying from start, teleportation stones. Did not scratch my grind itch. After a few hours I uninstalled.
The take is right, and that is how all things work. But on the flip side it’s a open market. Meaning the consumer AKA us, decide the market. When people stop being loyal to brands like sheep, and look at the projects they want and give them the $ the power shifts back to the consumer. Yes the process will repeat over time. But then the market should shift yet again. Follow talent not brands.
I follow fun, personally.
@@michaelm6179 not sure what you statement is suppose to mean nor why you felt the need to provide it.
Yes, you should follow fun please go do that.
T&L would be so much better if it wasn't time gated like a damn cell phone game
Idk about everyone else, but if they lowered the amount of money required for transactions id make more of them.
Its supposed to be MICRO transactions. Im never gonna spend 30 bucks to get a skin.
I would however spend 30 bucks on 3-6 skins.
I can con myself into five bucks a week easy. Ocasionally 10.
I dont mind supporting if its fun, but dont charge me the price of an indie game everytime i try to support you.
The targeting system is very poor' it sucks so bad that made me quit,and the minimap should have a option to invert, has potential but with those 2 mistakes won't last long
Dude, it’s a free to play a game. There are no release numbers for revenue. That’s a function of a buy to play game like New World which did fantastic as a commercial release sold 10 of millions probably 20s of millions of copies but then failed as a live service free game doesn’t have revenue numbers to report because there are none. There’s no sales you don’t buy it. Certainly, you could buy the access but isn’t the same Willing to bet that on a general basis, most people will wait until the full release especially when it’s only five days after their early access that the game is failing there are bows of people playing on every server you go to I mean but loads so much so that sometimes areas get laggy have you been to a field boss on any server Recently laggy as fuck when there are you know 150 people all casting all those spells with all the particle effects and shit going on the servers are loaded. You can go anywhere without seeing people are buying from the cash shop. They’re at least buying the battle pass and the leveling pass and then maybe buy some loosen to go in the auction house and buy some shit. In the last 24 hours this game still hit half of the initial peak concurrent user numbers and and word now a month in I think I actually think over a month NCS is having problems or not thrown in. Liberty is doing just fine.
Well, lately AAA have been anything but.. If gameplay isn't good it doesn't matter how good a game looks, and don't let me start with the monetizations - And to have investors that know "nothing" about gaming to make the decisions, well ..Greed is an awful characteristic.. Good news (as i know of) We have Pantheon rise of the Fallen, Monsters and Memories and Ashes of Creation (not a fan of AoC's monetization though) for the MMOrpg community to be part of and look forward too.
Preach boy preach! Hahaha couldn’t agree more with all you said. Larian is the GOAT! That mentality goes a long way and keeps gamers interested in quality. Throne has been a massive disappointment for me. Stupid mobile game disguised as a PC game hahaha idiots.
Be clear it doesn’t really matter who the fuck publishes a game the publisher is just the person that gets it on systems and both games are now on consoles both consoles and on PC and yet new world is still doing shit on PC because everybody on PC already knows that game is going. Nowhere. Doesn’t matter that Amazon publish both of these games, and further developed New World Amazon had to do with the development of throne and liberty publishing really doesn’t have shit to do with that since Amazon published again thrown, and liberty is kicking ass
It looks to me like this is all just capitalism working as intended. It's obviously easy to criticize the end result because it absolutely sucks as a consumer, but it's honestly difficult to fault anyone when you consider their position in the entire process. Most of these studios are founded by a small group of developers initially working on projects they feel passionate about, but their priority is ultimately to secure their own livelihood. If someone with money comes along and offers to compensate them for what they built, it's difficult to fault a person for taking that or "selling out".
For the person/people offering money, investments are always an uncertain thing so it makes perfect sense that they would want to see a return to justify that risk. After all, it's a numbers game since the investments that succeed need to also cover all of the investments that are going to fail for one reason or another. It's not like failure in business requires some sort of gross incompetence either so you can't really just say "just make sure your business doesn't fail". Trying to maximize your returns on each investment is a perfectly reasonable position for these people and if you own anything in the market for any purpose (retirement or otherwise), you likely feel the same way about your own personal portfolio.
For the suits that we all love to hate, they're being hired by the investors for the purpose of ensuring those returns. It's literally not their job to worry about the product quality outside of how that quality may affect revenue. I don't think it's unreasonable for anyone hired to a position to focus on what their job actually is or to prioritize the duties that they're being hired for. If they tell the investors to fuck off, then they get fired and replaced by someone who will actually carry out the job description.
At which point in this process should the line be drawn? Should developers be criticized for selling their companies or accepting outside investments? Should investors be criticized for expecting a return for their risk? Should executives be criticized for listening to their bosses and doing their jobs? Everyone in the system is acting completely rationally in accordance with their role and objectives. These are for-profit businesses, not charities or passion projects where it's perfectly fine to take losses simply because the value for you is in the enjoyment of the process. All of the monetization schemes and consumer manipulation is just the rational end result of that and looking out for the consumer's interests is not part of anyone's job. This is why government regulation ultimately becomes important-precisely because the natural course of business eventually leads to the maximum exploitation of the consumer.
I think that a lot of us forget how young the video games industry actually is. Granted, I realize that it's far older than a lot of gamers have been alive, but when you compare it to other industries such as food service, retail, or even the movie industry, it's still very young. The history we remember is a lot like the early history of those industries in which pioneers with passion for their businesses were the primary decisionmakers because the industry had not yet grown to a point where general investment was coming in. I think a lot of people see a commercial can of Chef Boyardee on a supermarket shelf today and forget that Chef Boiardi was actually a real person, a well respected chef, and somebody who started his company because people really loved his sauce and kept asking for it. He was a person that believed in quality and had a belief in the canning process to deliver quality to his consumers. It's been almost a century now and what's left of that is crappy canned pasta that's basically universally ridiculed by anyone who had tastebuds and doesn't have some sort of childhood nostalgia associated with the product. This evolution is basically what our generation is seeing happening to the gaming industry as a whole. Yes, there will always be indie studios operating on a smaller scale just as there are still small restaurants, but the big players moving forward are going to be the gaming equivalent of McDonald's and Kraft Foods because that's just how this stuff works.
Sorry if I'm being a bit cynical about it all, but when I really think about the industry and the motivations of the people within it, none of this really surprises me anymore. If anything, it almost feels like we've all been a bit naive to expect anything different from it.
We need to get the bagels out of gaming.. all companies should go private and start with smaller teams
Gaming (and society, but that's scary so let's focus on gaming) is in a massive transition period. Previously gaming was built by and for gamers and it worked well. Lots of people played, were very loyal to their games and studios, and much money was made. This put the blood in the water and the sharks showed up and thought that this is a great place to extract money from. But capitalism is as it ever was, and it took those resources of love, loyalty, and community and extracted every monitizable cent from the industry on all sides.
Now, that love, loyalty, and community have been drained and as the well runs dry the investors will get angry and attempt to quench their thirst elsewhere. Meanwhile, the community will love and be loyal to those not tainted by the vampiric investors and corporate, cookie cutter nonesense.
I didn't even try diablo IV because of diablo immortal (never tried either but that's no reason not to hate it) and blizzard in general. Look to ubisoft, and NCsoft, and microsoft, and other softs to see those names attached to a game are becoming liabilities.
It's a rough time, but game play is king and only those companies that love what they make, are loyal to themselves and the community will survive and in a few years (if, you know, the world still exists) we'll likely see a new golden age of gaming. Studios like larian will be flag barers of this and be credited with the start of this revolution even if it's really more organic than that.
It seems like TnL is making alot of money by looking at all the cosmetics people have in my server. Its more that they need TnL to make back the money they are losing in the mobile market. So thats why they are trying to restructure everything. As the game stands right now, i do not think they will let this game crash and burn. I have a feeling Amazon (I understand there is a difference between Amazon and NCsoft) is going to try their best since new world is probably not coming back from its failures. I can see the fun in this game as an avid mmo enjoyer whos played just about all the big releases in the past 20 years
Also, people are parroting information without even listening to the devs. Yes T2 is supposed to be released in quite a number of months from now but they have expressed willingness to release content earlier depending on player metrics. Theyve already done that with updates and patches that were ment for Korea first, but instead gave globally at the same time. For these reasons i do not feel any kind of doom and gloom about this financial information.
Yes, that's the jist of this video. 3/4ths of NCSofts money collapsed from mobile collapsing and TL can't make that up, it struggled mightily in Korea when it launched leading to the angry investor call back then that called for NCWest's head to be fired (whic happened) that was before TNL even launched, and they're talking about weak monetization and revenue sharing with AGS also as negatives.
It's not about whether players like TNL, its whether its making enough money, but its also still safe for now, it ant Project LLL also mentioned in this. Still no word on TNLs companion game: Project E.
@@Redbeardflynn yeah I agree, no way TnL can make back the same amount they were making from the mobile games but hopefully after the restructuring it has more weight for them financially.
The public and streamers can fix all of this without the corp model. Yet that's not why 99% of streamers stream. I mean you can be a real company people can research. A real creator with 5 novels of lore under their belt. A transparent informative exciting website. 100% original IP. Bestiary complete, combat logic and on. Get A direct message path to a streamer and they total ignore you like you are made of turds. I mean 4 paten pending mechanics alone should be a draw. Now lets wave our indy flags and talk about how we love them.........
Would be great if I could play their games w/o having to download another shitty launcher, seriously NO.