45 replies to this topic

[Queek Head Taker]

How much money does pgi make off this game or has made off this game in total? I'm just wondering why they making mechs and more mechs and farming the player base like crazy instead of making some new content to keep players staying and playing. I know I know pgi needs to make money.... but how much money as pgi is a business and the entire point of a business is to make money money money!

[Narcissistic Martyr]

They aren't publicly traded so no one can get that info for you without either being PGI or breaking a few laws.

[Khobai]

its hard for a development studio to make "money money money" with only one game title.

which is why their second game shouldve built upon the success of their first game. trans|verse made absolutely no sense from a business perspective. while an aerospace/battlespace game wouldve made perfect sense and likely wouldve been fully funded. building on past successes is how world of tanks was able to become world of warships, world of warplanes, a dumb cardgame too, etc...

I really dont understand PGI. Any game studio that has the licenses for both mechwarrior and wingcommander should be reeling in cash hand over fist.

[Queek Head Taker]

Khobai, on 04 October 2015 - 11:18 AM, said:

its hard for a development studio to make "money money money" with only one game title.

This is VERY incorrect. It's very easy for a company to make TONS of money off 1 game and many companies have made 100's of millions off 1 game. Most game companies fail not due to not enough money but out of control spending! I'm talking about spending on outside things not game things. Also doesn't pgi have a couple games at least!

[Khobai]

Quote

This is VERY incorrect. It's very easy for a company to make TONS of money off 1 game and many companies have made 100's of millions off 1 game

if its so easy why dont you share the secret with us? im sure lots of dev studios would like to know how easy it is to make hundreds of millions of dollars off 1 game. the reality is its not easy and it happens very infrequently. the games that make hundreds of millions are rare exceptions not the rule. 99.99% of games dont reach that level of success.

theres also the fact mech games dont really sell well. so no its not incorrect. even mechwarrior 2, the most successful battletech title to date, didnt make anywhere near "hundreds of millions". the only way a dev studio like PGI is going to make money is if it develops multiple titles.

Edited by Khobai, 04 October 2015 - 11:34 AM.

[RedDragon]

Khobai, on 04 October 2015 - 11:18 AM, said:

while an aerospace/battlespace game wouldve made perfect sense and likely wouldve been fully funded.

Pretty skeptical here. It's not like many people would have said "Oh yeah, let's throw even more money at them and hope that they make a better job this time and keep all their promises they broke on MWO!"

[Johnny Z]

Queek Head Taker, on 04 October 2015 - 11:25 AM, said:

This is VERY incorrect. It's very easy for a company to make TONS of money off 1 game and many companies have made 100's of millions off 1 game. Most game companies fail not due to not enough money but out of control spending! I'm talking about spending on outside things not game things. Also doesn't pgi have a couple games at least!

Bethesda has made a fortune off the Elder Scrolls and Fallout titles. PGI would do well to make a fortune off the Mechwarrior title and expand it into space with Aerotech.

Almost every topic makes me wonder what is coming for the rest of the year.

Not that Im expecting an Aerotech expansion although that would be amazing. But some kind of great updates is likely. To bad they dont let the players in on it.

Edited by Johnny Z, 04 October 2015 - 11:32 AM.

[Kraftwerkedup]

http://www.glassdoor...ies-E144886.htm

Add up the salaries. Add 15% for owners. Estimate their rent based on team size and location in Canada. Figure out what their payroll taxes are (Im not Canadian and dont know their laws).

Thats how much they make.

No one is getting rich. Theyre about on par with a Mom and Pop eatery, or a locally owned and run bar, with 7-15 employees and good customer turnout.

Since their primary income is mechpacks, and theyve told us how many theyve sold from time to time, its fairly easy to figure out a general range for their yearly income.

Theyre doing well enough to pay the bills for themselves and the company. Not well enough to hire someone who can change score screens, UI, or MM systems, or have Viona (does map art and models) on permanent staff. Shes working on other games at the same time. Shes expensive (shes really good, youve seen her work in Borderlands 2).

Enough to have stocked fridges. Not enough to keep anyone around after their specific tasks are completed. You can see that clearly on Glassdoor.

Alot of vitriol gets thrown at Paul and Russ for their bad game design decisions, and their lack of hiring someone who can do these things, but the reality is, they simply cant afford it.

That said, this past year has been really good. They sold ALOT of that wave 2 pack after IGP collapsed and PGI was spending a ton of time on the forums. They bought the license out until 2020, and now theyve got Unseen mechs to help carry them through.

Theyve made good money, but theyve invested it almost entirely in the future of PGI, and not into Mechwarrior Online specifically. Transverse was them planning on expanding into another game for the betterment of the studio, at, what many MWO fans thought, was the detriment of MWO.

MWO is their flagship, because they dont have any other ships. Not because its their primary concern. Staying open is their primary concern. They really love making games. They honestly do. This is their dream job. So theyre going to make sure that job is still around, before they worry about MWO being better. It just has to be good enough to keep the lights on. After MWO is long dead and gone, Russ and Paul still wont be old enough to retire, and probably would like to keep their company around.

Edited by Kraftwerkedup, 04 October 2015 - 11:45 AM.

[Victorion]

Queek Head Taker, on 04 October 2015 - 11:10 AM, said:

How much money does pgi make off this game or has made off this game in total? I'm just wondering why they making mechs and more mechs and farming the player base like crazy instead of making some new content to keep players staying and playing. I know I know pgi needs to make money.... but how much money as pgi is a business and the entire point of a business is to make money money money!

>Player base demands iconic mechs like the Marauder and Warhammer for years.

>PGI makes them and puts them up for preorder.

>Player base complains that there aren't more "Content" (Wtf does that even mean?) patches.

[JohnnyWayne]

Khobai, on 04 October 2015 - 11:18 AM, said:

while an aerospace/battlespace game wouldve made perfect sense and likely wouldve been fully funded.

No. It would not. Why are people claming things with 0 economics knowledge? They would split earnings this way. The current playerbase likes Battletech, the playerbase of an aerotech or what ever Battletech related game is the same. It would steal their customers for MWO away, while aquireing of new ones would be rather low. They'd literally become competitors to themselfs.

They double their costs and efforts for little to no additional gain, it makes not sense for PGI to make a battletech game with flying mechcockpits.

Yes it would be great for BT fans, but it would be bad for PGI.

[NextGame]

What they should do is start making and selling single player mission packs each of which include at least 1 new mech chassis, which coincidentally should go with a steam launch, which should come along at the same time harebrane's game goes onto steam.

It would be the best way to drive interest into battletech and keep MWO/PGI floating from a gaming perspective

But yes, PGI cant survive off 1 game forever.

Edited by NextGame, 04 October 2015 - 11:43 AM.

[JohnnyWayne]

Kraftwerkedup, on 04 October 2015 - 11:33 AM, said:

http://www.glassdoor...ies-E144886.htm

Well hello there, thats intresting.

[Kraftwerkedup]

Khobai, on 04 October 2015 - 11:26 AM, said:

if its so easy why dont you share the secret with us? im sure lots of dev studios would like to know how easy it is to make hundreds of millions of dollars off 1 game. the reality is its not easy and it happens very infrequently. the games that make hundreds of millions are rare exceptions not the rule. 99.99% of games dont reach that level of success.

theres also the fact mech games dont really sell well. so no its not incorrect. even mechwarrior 2, the most successful battletech title to date, didnt make anywhere near "hundreds of millions". the only way a dev studio like PGI is going to make money is if it develops multiple titles.

Be a one man, or very small team, devote yourself entirely to your one game, and make a game that no one ever has before, that is fairly easy to get into.

Minecraft comes to mind. Its not complicated, it was mostly completed by one guy, and sold a ton of copies. Dwarf Fortress and Project Zomboid as well. Very small or single man teams, making very complex deep and approachable games (for their fan bases, if you liked Rougelikes, DwarfFortress was easy to play, not for someone with no experience with the genre however).

Toady makes about 30k a month entirely from donations. This is huge when your overhead is literally your own rent and electric bill.

That said, this is also almost like winning the lottery. You cant just make a game then profit. It doesnt work that way. Otherwise Uncanny Valley or Technobabylon would both make bazillions. You cant always predict what games will "go viral" so to speak.

Mechwarrior has reached its peak. You can get onto steam and get new customers, but every game peaks in its 'reach'. MWO has peaked. So if people are thinking "Well this year theyre gonna make 50 million and we'll get aerospace!" well...I hate to tell you, thats not going to happen. They very well make aerospace and such a reality, but they arent going to suddenly find themselves flush with an incredibly higher amount of income. Its been around long enough that metrics for its 'trending' are pretty spot on.

PGI is at the point now where they literally fund things with mechpacks. Big mechpacks = people get hired two months later.

THAT you can set a clock too with PGI.

[Raggedyman]

Queek Head Taker, on 04 October 2015 - 11:10 AM, said:

How much money does pgi make off this game or has made off this game in total? I'm just wondering why they making mechs and more mechs and farming the player base like crazy instead of making some new content to keep players staying and playing. I know I know pgi needs to make money.... but how much money as pgi is a business and the entire point of a business is to make money money money!

Couple of things
1 - When you say "make" do you mean income from sales or income after direct costs or actual profits available to owners as drawings / dividends? Because it's perfectly possible for the answer to be $0.00 if they are putting everything after costs (staff, servers, buildings, taxes etc) back into the company or product

2 - PGI are making more mechs as that is what the players buy. They have said this repeatedly.

3 - PGI are making new content and they have added in various pieces of content this year. If you are wondering why specific content elements haven't been added (maps or game modes etc) then the likely answers are either that they don't make money or there isn't enough player base to make their addition viable. (again, they have repeatedly said this)

4 - PGI will be aware of how many players are staying and how many are going. They will also be aware of how much those staying are or aren't spending and make decisions based on that.

5 - PGI need to make enough money to keep the product in operational profit and make the owners happy on the returns on investment.

[JohnnyWayne]

Double post, thanks bad forum.

Edited by JohnnyWayne, 04 October 2015 - 11:59 AM.

[Kraftwerkedup]

JohnnyWayne, on 04 October 2015 - 11:54 AM, said:

Well hello there, thats intresting.

Yeah the internet is crazy. Glassdoor isnt the only one like that either, and of course everyones seen linkedin and the like. Theres no much left in the world thats truly private.

Some people play fantasy football, or have websites for following sports teams, and their staff, players, coaches, strategies, earnings, etc, because thats their hobby.

The gaming industry is alot of peoples hobby too. So these kind of tools are great for getting a picture of how and why things happen in the industry or in/with a particular studio.

If there are designers you like, and they change teams, its nice to know your 'player', will be adding their talents to an upcoming title. You can even notice their work in games you dont know they were a part of, once you see enough of their work. Like you could tell Jordan by his Dunking, or Shaq from his stature.

Glassdoor is also valuable for those job hunting. A company interviews you, to see if youre a good fit, you need to interview the company to see if theyre a good fit for you.

If you want to work somewhere, but go on Glassdoor and see they fire people when you have to take time off unexpectedly, and youre a new mother or father...you dont want to work there. You dont want to be fired because your kid got sick or suspended at school or have to make a PTA meeting. So you can see what employees have said and what theyve gone through with that company.

Helps keep their feet on the fire.

Also.....

Bethesda is literally one of the worst places to work outside of a Chinese salt mine, or being an EMT in Iraq. They banned employees going on Glassdoor and are constantly at "War" with Glassdoor, over the vitriol ex employees have put up there.

On the other end of the spectrum, Rockstar games has one of the highest CEO approval ratings amongst ex employees. Even ones that were fired, still thought the CEO was doing a great job, cared about them, worked with them, etc. Even being fired was pleasant and they note they were always welcome in the offices, and as testers.

Glassdoor is the future.

Edited by Kraftwerkedup, 04 October 2015 - 12:06 PM.

[zagibu]

There were about 30k players in last event. If a player pays $20 on average per year, PGI makes 600k. You can vary both variables, but these are the dimensions. No hundreds of millions for PGI. Maybe more than one, but I doubt it.

[Kraftwerkedup]

They definitely make more than a million a year.

Recall last year they estimated making a new map, costs them about 450k. From artist's salaries, to paying for assets, testing, implementing, etc. Now, thats not like they drop 450k and they get a map, theyre also taking about keeping the lights on while the map is being made.

If it takes about 4 months from concept to final testing pass, well, there you go. Obviously theyre also paying for other things, and there is crossover of funds spent for return in assets, but, you can imagine its more than a million in a year, less than 10 million.

[Sabazial]

Kraftwerkedup, on 04 October 2015 - 12:19 PM, said:

Recall last year they estimated making a new map, costs them about 450k. From artist's salaries, to paying for assets, testing, implementing, etc. Now, thats not like they drop 450k and they get a map, theyre also taking about keeping the lights on while the map is being made.

Those figures were total hyperbole, no way it costs half a million to add a map to a game.

[JohnnyWayne]

Belphegore, on 04 October 2015 - 01:26 PM, said:

Those figures were total hyperbole, no way it costs half a million to add a map to a game.

Well how many maps have you added to games before? People with no experience tend to spit out comments like that usually.