118 replies to this topic

[zagibu]

Roadkill, on 10 February 2015 - 09:28 AM, said:

35k unique players over one specific weekend sounds reasonable to me. My estimates based on a variety of inputs (including Kiiyor's data) put MWO at around 100k active users as a minimum, meaning people who log in at least once a week.

100k active users as a minimum? Never. 35k is already on the high end of speculation.

And yeah, those who say nobody else would touch Mechwarrior are wrong. MW:O has proven that the Mechwarrior license can net a lot of money even with a minimal investment. Now imagine how much money it could make if someone actually tried?

Edited by zagibu, 10 February 2015 - 04:33 PM.

[Impossible Wasabi]

It's proven to be a great business experiment, now if only the developers could accomplish half as much in regards to the actual game.

Edited by The True Space Pope, 10 February 2015 - 05:43 PM.

[Doc Sav]

Quote

5.5 million in founder's money, etc.

</div>

I don't mean to denigrate the IP here, and I fully agree that the amazing BT fanbase can and has made amazing things happen. Let me blow up what I meant, and clarify that I am making several admittedly large logical leaps in making my statement.</div>

A. The last major commercial Battletech videogame title to be released was MechAssault: Phantom War in 2006. I don't have access to sales figures for any game in the series, but it is a fair assumption that the first one did decent as the series got 2 more games. However, either Microsoft has not had any interest in publishing more between now and then, or no developer has wanted to make any more &quot;Assault&quot; games. Certainly doesn't seem like the kind of thing rational companies would do if there were a decent margin on the table, especially with Microsoft or Nintendo's hardware install bases.</div>
- MechWarrior 4 Mercs came out in 2002, MechCommander 2 in 2001. Both fairly well regarded by fans from what I can tell, and previous games in the series had a rough 3-4 year cycle between games. Yet it took 10+ years for the next spiritual successors, MWO and MechWarrior Tactical Command, to be released publicly. Both sought funding through avenues not yet in existence in the time of their predecessors, crowdfunding in MWO's case and the mobile app space for Tactical command. This implies to me that for more than a decade, there was not a development margin that was appealing to publishers/deveopers.</div>
-WHAT I DO NOT KNOW HERE, is whether the appeal was lacking due to perceived ability to profit on the IP in general, or if the various copyrights for the IP, which are notoriously difficult to navigate, even for company and industry insiders, made the IP inaccessible. Now here is another point where opinion will vary widely; in my mind part of a powerful IP is actually having a meaningful way to get licensing done for said IP. If the copyright is so inaccessible that is stalls new developments in previously successful game series for over a decade, that is not very compelling.</div>

B. While MWO and fans certainly pulled off an impressive feat of crowd source funding in their initial drive, I think it important to keep 2 key issues in mind. First, that curve is going to be heavily, heavily front-loaded. Core fans of the IP basically paid in advance for a high concept, and like me were glad to have a part in jump-starting a new BT game. As the realities of development have set in, many have noted that some players have gone, and some are watching and waiting. It is highly unlikely that the game is generating $5.5 million annually now. Now that may or may not be a problem, and that will all depend on the next 2 years or so
Second, $5.5 million, while impressive for fans to raise, is quite a modest budget for a modern triple A game title. If we assume that has doubled over the last two years to about $11 million, that would put MWO in the ballpark of some of the major game titles whose budgets have been publicly disclosed, but certainly not even in the high end.

In the end, I feel a bit silly even arguing the point. I love Battletech, even most of the bad stuff. MWO to me, has the potential to be something awesome, and I still find it mostly pleasing even currently. I hope MWO gets huge, and re-ignites lots of other things, whether PGI is at the helm or someone else. Just that my hopes and reality kinda have a habit of being completely different is all.

Edit: Sorry for the wall of text.

Edited by Doc Sav, 10 February 2015 - 05:47 PM.

[Kassatsu]

Let's also not forget that in addition to being a weekend, this was also a "GRIND MOAR" event, so the numbers were likely inflated even further.

Someone probably said that before me in the 5 pages already on this thread, but oh well.

[Kiiyor]

Chagatay, on 09 February 2015 - 05:49 PM, said:

Yeah but Kiiyor's science dataset is very extensive and it states 18K!!! He does say there maybe bugs and what not but that number is huge!! (I suspect it is lower but 18K active* is not out of the question)

https://mwomercs.com...s-with-science/

*active as in logs in a week and plays 1 or 2 matches.

And that was from around a mere month of collating screens.

I think the real truth involves a mostly-constant hardcore group of players, and a far, far larger number of casuals.

Also, OP, CW matches often take far, far longer than 15 minutes - especially if you take into account the huge time delays in marshalling forces and planet hopping to try and find fuller queues.

[WVAnonymous]

Kiiyor, on 10 February 2015 - 05:55 PM, said:

And that was from around a mere month of collating screens.

I think the real truth involves a mostly-constant hardcore group of players, and a far, far larger number of casuals.

Also, OP, CW matches often take far, far longer than 15 minutes - especially if you take into account the huge time delays in marshalling forces and planet hopping to try and find fuller queues.

What he said. I would guess there are several hundred to a few thousand players who buy virtually every pack that comes out because we are middle aged guys pulling down six figures and MWO is still cheaper than cable. There are a few hundred goofballs that buy gold mechs (include some of my good friends here ) and several thousand that spend a little with another several thousand that come and go and spend nothing.

As long as PGI keeps up with the good customer relationship with the few thousand guys that kick in several hundred thousand a year, and there are enough casuals to keep the servers running, I think this is a viable business model.

To repeat the comments above, this is a niche game and it's the only viable Battletech IP around. It's not going to be LoL, but it may last just as long.

[pyrocomp]

Just a comment on funds and budgets and results. Common description of 2014 video games markets is 'triple A miserable failure'. Really disappointing results but here we are. Second thought that travels from review to review is that at current state on decline of interest in Brazilian soap opera style serials (CoD etc) the ok franchises will be brought from the shelves and restarted by publishers (just look at EA). MWO is from that category. Starcitizen is from long forgotten spacesim genre. We may even see DK3.

Why a publisher does not continue franchise is not only a question of money made on previous game (rare case) but also politics (publisher switched to games for children under 12 and definitely will not make horror games), lack of developer capable (in publisher bosses eyes) of making a game of desired quality and many other things prohibiting game production and rights selling.

[Doc Sav]

I completely get that there is much involved in whether or not a franchise gets picked up. I guess my point was, in each reason you described, the ultimate question is whether the juice is worth the squeeze for a company, and up until recently that has apparently not been the case with the various BT franchise games. I agree the trend may be changing in the near future due to the market, but my viewpoint is it is not near enough to say MWO gets scooped right back up by the next company. I guess the only example I have is MechWarrior: Tactics, but as a promising successor to MechCommander, you'd think it would have gotten the pick.

[zagibu]

Doc Sav, on 10 February 2015 - 07:35 PM, said:

I guess the only example I have is MechWarrior: Tactics, but as a promising successor to MechCommander, you'd think it would have gotten the pick.

Strategy/Tactics is a much less popular genre than FPS shooters. A niche IP license in a niche genre...

[Kassatsu]

zagibu, on 10 February 2015 - 07:52 PM, said:

Strategy/Tactics is a much less popular genre than FPS shooters. A niche IP license in a niche genre...

I'm pretty sure Mechwarrior was far more popular than Mech Commander ever was. Should speak volumes for the type of games that were popular even back in the mid-90s. Why click a dude so you can watch your dude kill the other dude (or watch your own dude die) when you can click a dude and kill the other dude (or get killed by the other dude) yourself?

Better question: Why not both?

Edited by Kassatsu, 10 February 2015 - 08:07 PM.

[Anjian]

I use War Thunder as a standard metric, since they pose their simultaneous numbers online, encompassing all their servers. Then I relate forum and social media activity between Mechwarrior Online and War Thunder and my guesstimate is that War Thunder is around 3 to 4x bigger than Mechwarrior Online.

Given that War Thunder has hit peaks of 90,000 users, sometimes even 100,000 users, I am thinking we are looking at around a range of 25,000 to 35,000 users concurrently for MWO. This is comparable to EVE Online, which might be seeing around 37,000 to 50,000 users concurrently.

I already mentioned my guesstimate on another post disputing a forum thread post claiming MWO has around 2,000 players at peak.

[Doc Sav]

I am sure FPS is the dominant genre. In any event, I realized I completely invalidated my own point because MechWarrior Tactical Command was made for IOS, so someone obviously got the license and found it worth making a similar gametype to Tactics, even if it wasn't as optimal a genre as FPS!

[zagibu]

Anjian, on 10 February 2015 - 08:16 PM, said:

I use War Thunder as a standard metric, since they pose their simultaneous numbers online, encompassing all their servers. Then I relate forum and social media activity between Mechwarrior Online and War Thunder and my guesstimate is that War Thunder is around 3 to 4x bigger than Mechwarrior Online.

Given that War Thunder has hit peaks of 90,000 users, sometimes even 100,000 users, I am thinking we are looking at around a range of 25,000 to 35,000 users concurrently for MWO. This is comparable to EVE Online, which might be seeing around 37,000 to 50,000 users concurrently.

I already mentioned my guesstimate on another post disputing a forum thread post claiming MWO has around 2,000 players at peak.

These numbers are absolutely ridiculous. 35k concurrent users, yeah, right.

[627]

Vassago Rain, on 10 February 2015 - 04:13 PM, said:

Mechwarrior is a license to print money.

This.

Can't highlight that enough. If anyone is wondering why Harmony Gold is still so stubborn and greedy with the unseen mechs... they understood this.

[pyrocomp]

FPS was rulling genre on few occasions (Wolfenstein 3D came out and doom came out, you see the peak, then quake and modern series). In between at some point RTS was a massive genre (and most moneymaking). If to look at... Ok limit that to the last 30 years of video games history and observe tremendous variations in this or that genre. The decisions are made not on the juice you can get out of franchise but on expectancy of amount of said juice, and video games market is not that predictable or the there wasn't that triple A failure this year. Many game reviews start with Disappointment of the year'. So I'm not so sure that MechCommander 3would be a flop or even extremely niche product. Tactical games field now is extremely empty. And empty there cannot be for long.

BT Universe is more or less big to accommodate for many games of different genres, not just Sims and Tacs. For example look how Lucas managed his franchise and what was made in SW Universe. Franchise management matters. And BT has it's own appeal since you have some freedom in plots and enough material is you don't want to invent said plot.

[Sarlic]

Vassago Rain, on 10 February 2015 - 04:13 PM, said:

5.5 million in founder's money before kickstarter was a thing, or we had even developed real crowdfunding. MWO was the biggest crowdfunder ever until starcitizen eclipsed it in july 2013.
Allegedly we have lots of people who've blown thousands of dollars on the game.
Allegedly, 'some 400' goldmechs sold.
Everytime there's a new hero, you see like 10 of them in every match.
The game's somehow managed to limp along for 3 years of active service now.

Mechwarrior has proven that it's more than modestly successful. Any failings aren't due to the IP, but PGI not taking advantage of said IP, or developing an actual videogame to go with the robot shop, and instead wanting to branch out into the latest space game sandbox fad.

I guarantee you that if PGI were to fold, someone with deeper pockets would snatch up the rights almost instantly, because you don't leave money on the table like that - especially when it's now proven that a minimally viable MWO will milk lots of money out of some of the most loyal players EVER (prospective buyers will do their research and see all the controversies that have rocked MWO over the years).

So MVP online arena game now...imagine how much more money and players an actual MMO could bring in. Mechwarrior is a license to print money.

Sums it up untill now.

I do see clearly a improvement since PGI unchained from the publisher. Unfortunatly as you have pointed out this product will and still be a minimal viable product. Well it 'only' has been a few months. I am willing to wait out what PGI will come up the next couple of months.

PGI is really trying to make use of the franchise and the advantages with it but they have missed the boat when they scrapped Rolewarfare, which is in my eyes a huge mistake to begin with. But over the past few month i am seeing more positive things in development. Not bad at all.

Furthermore i am hoping to see a vast improvement in the future. It still clearly shows that some hardcore players have deep pockets with money. And are actually willing to pay thousends of dollars.

[Vassago Rain]

Doc Sav, on 10 February 2015 - 07:35 PM, said:

I completely get that there is much involved in whether or not a franchise gets picked up. I guess my point was, in each reason you described, the ultimate question is whether the juice is worth the squeeze for a company, and up until recently that has apparently not been the case with the various BT franchise games. I agree the trend may be changing in the near future due to the market, but my viewpoint is it is not near enough to say MWO gets scooped right back up by the next company. I guess the only example I have is MechWarrior: Tactics, but as a promising successor to MechCommander, you'd think it would have gotten the pick.

Tactics had nothing in common with mech commander. It was a card game without any kind of trading features. I don't know who ever thought that was 'promising,' or a 'successor' to anything.

[Zergling]

I did a brief analysis during the Christmas Stocking Stuffer event, based on how much MC/GXP/Cbills I'd earned from the event after about 24 hours of play, versus how much a casual player doing 1-2 hours per day would manage.

...and I hit figures in the range of 50,000 to 200,000 active players.


So there is three possibilities:
A: the playerbase is vastly more hardcore than normal, with players spending several times as much playtime per day than normal
B: PGI is fabricating event statistics
C: the game really does have a decent sized playerbase

[Torgun]

Zergling, on 11 February 2015 - 01:47 AM, said:

I did a brief analysis during the Christmas Stocking Stuffer event, based on how much MC/GXP/Cbills I'd earned from the event after about 24 hours of play, versus how much a casual player doing 1-2 hours per day would manage.

...and I hit figures in the range of 50,000 to 200,000 active players.


So there is three possibilities:
A: the playerbase is vastly more hardcore than normal, with players spending several times as much playtime per day than normal
B: PGI is fabricating event statistics
C: the game really does have a decent sized playerbase

The difference is the stocking stuffer event give out random rewards, which you really can't deduce anything from with results from a small portion of the player base. The latest event give a certain amount of points for each match, not random points, which makes any calculations from that much more accurate.

[Lily from animove]

Vassago Rain, on 10 February 2015 - 04:13 PM, said:

5.5 million in founder's money before kickstarter was a thing, or we had even developed real crowdfunding. MWO was the biggest crowdfunder ever until starcitizen eclipsed it in july 2013.
Allegedly we have lots of people who've blown thousands of dollars on the game.
Allegedly, 'some 400' goldmechs sold.
Everytime there's a new hero, you see like 10 of them in every match.
The game's somehow managed to limp along for 3 years of active service now.

Mechwarrior has proven that it's more than modestly successful. Any failings aren't due to the IP, but PGI not taking advantage of said IP, or developing an actual videogame to go with the robot shop, and instead wanting to branch out into the latest space game sandbox fad.

I guarantee you that if PGI were to fold, someone with deeper pockets would snatch up the rights almost instantly, because you don't leave money on the table like that - especially when it's now proven that a minimally viable MWO will milk lots of money out of some of the most loyal players EVER (prospective buyers will do their research and see all the controversies that have rocked MWO over the years).

So MVP online arena game now...imagine how much more money and players an actual MMO could bring in. Mechwarrior is a license to print money.

depends and is not easily said this way. Many f2p games follow the p2w system where are store exclusive things that are a real advantages. And would MWO be this, I would not have spend any money here.

Some people get upset and say that the "early access" is already p2w, which is wrong, but hey they say it, but none of them ever probably played a real p2w game. They should porbbaly go into all those standardisesd asia MMO's to see what p2w means.

But with true p2w features MWO would die rather quick, because the fanbase likes robostomping, and p2w stomping wpuld be an issue. it is already an issue that the SCR, TBR and now TDR have those unbalanced valaues, and games like ME live by their fans, fans that want at leats to have soem kind of fun to play the mech they like.

strangely in the topic about srping cleaning of your mechbay, where people are said to keep 5 of their mechs, the TBR is nto even choosen as often as it is said to be popular.
But why is the timbering everywhere? because its slitghly op, to a degree it outerforms others and poeple choose it because choosing something else is less rewarding by being a lot more stressy.

Happy people throw money at the game they like. Even fpor rather rubish stuff *caugh*urbanmech*caugh*



But what is the future of how MWO is going to pay itself? once most mechs are done, what is going to sustain money for the game? Especially without going p2w? I guess customisation is the way to go. It's the only feaure thats not affecting gameplay a lot, except probably some true camo effects on visibility.