83 replies to this topic

[Vasces Diablo]

Chemie, on 25 March 2013 - 03:56 PM, said:

comment from Brian that peacock items not selling well. I guess this is why we now see consumables? and why they will do 3rd person? because why do you paint your mech when you do not even get to see it in game?
Did they think that hula girls and dice was gonna pay for this? I would take this comment to mean that for them to make money, we will see more and more "almost" P2W showing up, and if that doesn;t work, then straigth P2W.

$60,000 for a mech;
$250,000 for a map

They originally said 1 mech and 1 map per month. I seriously doubt we will see one map per month based on that!

I would bet that these are fully allocated costs, not just base production costs.

In other words, to make a mech/map requires X development hours, and a development hour costs Y.

Y is allocated cost of a development hour which includes things like: avg developer wage, benefits, allocated fixed overhead (rent), allocated variable overhead (monthly bills), depreciable assets (desk, computer, equipment), IP licensing, general project costs (project manager wages, concept art) and lots of other things.

So it's not like "a developers wage is $60 an hour, so it must take 1000 hours to make a mech". It's far less than that, it's just a way of expressing the cost of running a business.

Edit: I should clarify my point. People hear this numbers and think "wow, they are spending all that money on those two things, and they still have to pay rent and electricity and so on... That's unsustainable, no wonder they need so much cash." However, that is (most likely) not the case. Most of the expenses of running MWO are probably baked into those mech/map costs. The $60k to make a mech is way to identify the true cost of doing business, broken down to a unit level. It's basic financial accounting.

Edited by Vasces Diablo, 27 March 2013 - 01:35 PM.

[Chemie]

I think they should raise the price of camao to $5 but make it across all mechs. I think they should drop colors to $1 each. I mean, $4 is crazy. Assuming you need 10-12 colors to go with all your camos, thats $50. Then you have to buy all those camos...another $50. And they complain that people are not keen on spending on this? Who wants to pay $100 to color a mech that they do not even get to see in-game?

Even at $1 per color and $5 per camo, they can easily get $30 per player. I have not gone back to Tribes since CB but the guy implied you can spend micro or "buy everything for one $30 payment". I know global agenda was just $15 for premium which gave a lot of functionality.

Maybe if PGI tried for $30-$60 per player versus trying to get $100 from a smaller number, they would get better uptake.

Of course, I suspect the reason for 3PV is to get players to want to color their mechs.

[Captain Stiffy]

irony1999, on 25 March 2013 - 04:45 PM, said:

Oh you mean things like, TOP DAMAGE, TOP KILLER, MOST ASSISTS, LEAST DAMAGE TAKEN, FASTEST MECH, SLOWEST MECH, LONGEST SHOT, LONGEST AIRTIME, etc?

Yeah, they're coming... they're coming...

No, I DO NOT MEAN MATCH ACCOLADES!

I mean true to god achievements that REQUIRE A HIGH DEGREE OF FOCUS AND SKILL to pull off. Like the examples I gave, things you must only do once. Destroy 10 components in one match. Destroy 7 arms in one match. Be involved in every single enemy kill in a match.

I'm after things like this that change the gameplay mechanics while you are trying to achieve them. It's hard to find a balance between wanting to blow off that last arm to get 7 and trying to live to do it AND be effective among your teammates - or any number of combinations like that.