1555 replies to this topic

[focuspark]

11 days and counting...

[NocturnalBeast]

MWO is fun, could be better, but still fun. The Phoenix packs and Saber packs are better deals than anything PGI has offered before, so buy it, or don't and move on.

[Kaemon]

May they be every bit as good as the Founder's mechs...

[stjobe]

Nekki Basara, on 04 October 2013 - 09:20 AM, said:

I don't know what you define as "a little" but from the rumoured numbers of Phoenix packs after the rather large amount of Founders sold I'd be set for life a few times over on the money this game has raked in.

Founders brought in $5 million (not all of which went to PGI, rumour has it the lion's share went to IGP).
Average programmer wage in Canada is $60,000.

I'll let you do the math.

[Heffay]

stjobe, on 04 October 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:

Founders brought in $5 million (not all of which went to PGI, rumour has it the lion's share went to IGP).
Average programmer wage in Canada is $60,000.

I'll let you do the math.

Wages are generally only a fraction of the cost of an employee to boot. You can easily add another 30-50% of overhead on to just their base salary.

[stjobe]

Heffay, on 04 October 2013 - 12:01 PM, said:

Wages are generally only a fraction of the cost of an employee to boot. You can easily add another 30-50% of overhead on to just their base salary.

Oh I know, I've run my own business in the past. But I was just trying to show Mr "I'd be set for life if I got all that money" that even if those were the only expenditures they had, those $5 million would still not last for more than two years.

[Chronojam]

Steadfast, on 04 October 2013 - 11:01 AM, said:

I might not be happy with PGI's overall direction with this game, might not be happy with the balancing, am not happy with the communication thus far and most certainly will not forget the 3rd person {Scrap} they pulled. Even though sometimes PGI hits the spot and actually communicates -wich I like - more often in the last three months than before.
Anyways, I bought the pack on day one, because ike them old mechs, I grew up with them and overall I more like the game than I hate it.

Only real mech game in town and nostalgia's such a huge draw. That's basically what's keeping MWO afloat.

[HugoStiglitz]

Heffay, on 04 October 2013 - 12:01 PM, said:

Wages are generally only a fraction of the cost of an employee to boot. You can easily add another 30-50% of overhead on to just their base salary.

Not to mention the licensing of Mechwarrior (which from what I understand they got a good deal on, but still) and CryEngine. Those had to cost a good bit too.

Edited by HugoStiglitz, 04 October 2013 - 12:27 PM.

[PictishWolf]

I just don't understand why they couldn't have stuck to their original, awesome concept that enticed so many to pay so much for a game that didn't exist. (I waited too long to buy in and Murphy's Law stole the money I was gonna spend on a Founders pkg.) There would have been much fewer angry people and they could have let us help them figure out how, if absolutely necessary, to implement 3PV after the game was solid and fun. I’d bet they would’ve attracted a lot more money to the game if they had.

We want the game to succeed, too, and to do that we need new blood. We all get that. But, the way it was done seemed like a big, ol' "F.U., founders! We're not making that anymore. 3PV arcade mode, FTW!" to many of us.

If there was a slower uptake than expected, it wasn't because of the lack of 3PV. (I can’t understand why anyone would want to walk behind little remote control robots when they could feel like they’re actually the pilot inside a big stompy robot. That’s what it seems like, to me at least.) It was because the UI and gameplay has a pretty steep learning curve and new users are demoralizingly beaten down for way too long before it starts to become fun. I loved the old PC games but I was very close to quitting in my first week because it was so unfun. No tutorial (still rudimentary, at best), no real documentation (until I found sarna.net, mechspecs.com, and smurfy mechbay). Add in that all we’ve had is Team Deathmatch since closed beta and weapon balance has been all over the freakin’ place and you have almost the ideal formula for how to lose players’ interest.

Plus, of the new content that has been added, much of it can only be had using MC and at insanely exorbitant prices, IMHO. True, camouflage and Hero Mechs aren’t necessary, but they seem to have forgotten that the PtW players need someone to shoot at for the game to be fun. There aren't enough of them to sustain the game by themselves. If the FtP players move on because they aren’t having fun, the game will die. I don’t want that. I want it to be fun again.

If the devs would just realize that all we really want is to help them make the most awesome BT game ever that everyone and their sister will want to play. I sincerely thought that beta testers would have had more of an opportunity to influence the game’s development. Apparently, we weren’t beta testers at all, just funders.

[Wintersdark]

Realistically, $2m/yr is pretty reasonable for the initial team's salary. It's grown a lot since then, including a large number of highly skilled folks who make reasonable money. I've no idea what things are like for americans, but $60k/yr here is not a good income. Particularly in Vancouver, where the cost of living is extraordinarily high. As a Vancouver boy myself for 12 years (2000-2012), I made about $60/yr and barely got by; in fact, I left town for that very reason. As a factory worker in Calgary, Alberta, I make 80k a year (and have a small fraction of the cost of living; pthtbthtbbh to those still in Vancouver!).

So, just ballparking at $2m/yr for salaries, then add in employee overhead which is going to be putting us in the neighborhood of 2.6m a year, and you've already eaten that 5m from founders. Where's the office space? Utilities? Data center server and bandwidth costs, up front and upkeep? Office equipment (which is shockingly expensive)? Licensing costs (likely a royalty and an upfront cost)? IGP's cut? Profits*?

People trot out this $5m founders cash like it's a big deal, but while it absolutely was critical to getting the game running, it was almost certainly completely used in the first year of the games' life, and we're into Year 3.



* Yes, you need profits. If PGI doesn't turn a worthwhile profit on top of meeting expenses, they go bye bye. Profits are required to keep partners involved and to continue to grow.

[Trynn]

Amen Winter,

If anythng I think you may be understating costs.

Dont forget Cryengines cut.


And Welcome to Cowtown.

[Heffay]

Not to mention everyone with half a brain WANTS the employees of PGI to be driving around in gold plated Teslas. That means the game is hugely successful, which means they'll continue development and we get the giant stompy space robot sim we've been waiting for since the first person thought about the first giant stompy space robot sim!

[Tarzilman]

Flames and envy!
Yay!

Edited by Tarzilman, 05 October 2013 - 12:23 AM.

[stinkypuppy]

i bet on the 15th everyone who got their refunds are going to be butt-hurt when they see the phoenix mechs and start complaining that they want them for free. write down these words somewhere i bound its going to happen.

[Xeno Phalcon]

stinkypuppy, on 05 October 2013 - 05:33 PM, said:

i bet on the 15th everyone who got their refunds are going to be butt-hurt when they see the phoenix mechs and start complaining that they want them for free. write down these words somewhere i bound its going to happen.

Someone said something about like that in the refund thread. My response there is the same here, anyone that got a refund is unlikely to regret the choice, same for those that just didnt fork up the cash to begin with. But we WILL see "QQ p2w mechs" crying for awhile untill everyone gets access to the battlemaster (January/2014), I mean some of these guys are crying over p2w mechs NOW I can only imagine the river of tears that will flow from mechs that they wont see for months.

[A Man In A Can]

Oh wow. Just noticed we actually reached the final unlock Flame pattern.

Thanks for buying Project Phoenix everyone!

[Chronojam]

stinkypuppy, on 05 October 2013 - 05:33 PM, said:

i bet on the 15th everyone who got their refunds are going to be butt-hurt when they see the phoenix mechs and start complaining that they want them for free. write down these words somewhere i bound its going to happen.

I will take you up on that bet, because I know plenty who have already taken the money and spent it on Star Citizen or War Thunder instead and won't care.

[Alpha087]

PictishWolf, on 04 October 2013 - 02:09 PM, said:

I just don't understand why they couldn't have stuck to their original, awesome concept that enticed so many to pay so much for a game that didn't exist. (I waited too long to buy in and Murphy's Law stole the money I was gonna spend on a Founders pkg.) There would have been much fewer angry people and they could have let us help them figure out how, if absolutely necessary, to implement 3PV after the game was solid and fun. I’d bet they would’ve attracted a lot more money to the game if they had.

Developing a video game isn't always as simple as just, "Well, it's a goal that appears to be viable now so... It will happen!" There are bugs. There are balancing issues. There are just problems that they could not be prepared to deal with until those problems actually arose. All the while they have to do this with IGP controlling their budgets. I would not at all be surprised if 3PV, for example, was something IGP forced them to throw in, but of course they could not really tell us if that was the case.

If you've followed any 'massively' multiplayer game before, you'd realize that goals are just that, goals. They may or may not always go down without a hitch, and just like Murphy's Law prevented you from buying into founders, you can also expect it to hit a project like MWO at almost every corner.

What I find absolutely hilarious, is how these problems -still- somehow equate to the value of the Phoenix project. They have nothing to do with it. Nowhere in any Phoenix Project post/page does it state that you're paying for 1pv only games, UI 2.0, or CW. You're paying for 'mechs and you're getting 'mechs if you paid for them.

The constant whining about this and that unrelated topic doesn't need to bleed into this.

[Alpha087]

Chronojam, on 05 October 2013 - 06:31 PM, said:

I will take you up on that bet, because I know plenty who have already taken the money and spent it on Star Citizen or War Thunder instead and won't care.

Interesting. Do you know any who have done that but still continue to complain on the forums here about it while simultaneously berating those who aren't dissatisfied with the game and are exciting for their Phoenix 'mechs?

If so, perhaps you can also explain how is it that they don't care but still continue to make these posts?

[Heffay]

Alpha087, on 05 October 2013 - 06:44 PM, said:

Interesting. Do you know any who have done that but still continue to complain on the forums here about it while simultaneously berating those who aren't dissatisfied with the game and are exciting for their Phoenix 'mechs?

If so, perhaps you can also explain how is it that they don't care but still continue to make these posts?

Desperate attempt to remain relevant? Feeble hopes that they didn't back the wrong horse and compromise their integrity just to be right?

Oh! I know... they were really drunk and said things they didn't mean! I like that one. I use it a lot!