47 replies to this topic

[InvictusLee]

Why cant they invest in programmers, game modes, more maps at a more reasonable pace, hirer former crytech devs or techs or whatever the excuse is for not being able to code new things or migrate all of our data to Unreal Engine or Frost Bite or something?

Like. From a business standpoint, PGI uses digital distribution, selling digital products with no real cost to manufacture or overhead in a traditional sense. All the money that they make should be 97.6552% profit which can then be re-invested in the game?

I know solaris is comming, but im actually really forward to that or bolt ons. Id really rather have them fix this super broken game instead of the constant nerfs and rebalances and hot fixes when nerfs go arwy.

[Magam Flamesmith]

Right there at the bottom of the page.

Better question, why are all those who claim the issues are so easy to fix, not rushing to actually fix them?

[InvictusLee]

Listen if I was a game dev, Id be the first guy to volunteer.

[Kroete]

November11th, on 03 February 2018 - 11:39 PM, said:

From a business standpoint, PGI uses digital distribution, selling digital products with no real cost to manufacture or overhead in a traditional sense. All the money that they make should be 97.6552% profit which can then be re-invested in the game?

Crytek offered different license models at that time,
one was pay nothing but 20% of the income from the game you have done with the engine.
Some you have to invest heavy before to use the engine ,...
Guess what license they choose?

Mickysoft want something too because mw license, that slow and recourceshungry scaleform ui is licensed too.

Half or more of the money is for licenses ...

[sycocys]

Magam Flamesmith, on 03 February 2018 - 11:40 PM, said:

Right there at the bottom of the page.

Better question, why are all those who claim the issues are so easy to fix, not rushing to actually fix them?

They've been "hiring" for 5 years.

So either they aren't actually hiring -or- nobody wants to work for them. Probably a bit of both.

[Kaeb Odellas]

November11th, on 03 February 2018 - 11:39 PM, said:

Why cant they invest in programmers, game modes, more maps at a more reasonable pace, hirer former crytech devs or techs or whatever the excuse is for not being able to code new things or migrate all of our data to Unreal Engine or Frost Bite or something?

Like. From a business standpoint, PGI uses digital distribution, selling digital products with no real cost to manufacture or overhead in a traditional sense. All the money that they make should be 97.6552% profit which can then be re-invested in the game?

I know solaris is comming, but im actually really forward to that or bolt ons. Id really rather have them fix this super broken game instead of the constant nerfs and rebalances and hot fixes when nerfs go arwy.

What? Lack of physical goods manufacturing and distribution doesn't mean lack of overheads. PGI have staff salaries. They have bandwidth and server costs. They have rent and utilities. They have taxes. They have benefits packages. None of this is free.

[PocketYoda]

Check Glass door (I think thats what its called) and look for PGI that will give you some idea if its worth working there or not.

https://www.glassdoo...44886.11,24.htm

Edited by Samial, 04 February 2018 - 03:22 AM.

[Daggett]

November11th, on 03 February 2018 - 11:39 PM, said:

Like. From a business standpoint, PGI uses digital distribution, selling digital products with no real cost to manufacture or overhead in a traditional sense. All the money that they make should be 97.6552% profit which can then be re-invested in the game?

Wait, what? Let me give you a short example:
According to wikipedia they have 65 employees. I don't live in canada but i think an average of 50k yearly salary including on-cost/taxes could be a nice conservative estimate, it's probably more. That's $3.25 million they have to earn each year just to pay their staff. If you factor in everything else like marketing, office cost, licensing or taxes you can easily get to 5 millions each year to keep the company alive without firing lots of employees. No profit being made so far.

What do you think a game with only about 60k active monthly players will make each year? Hint: Its not 166 millions as you suggest, it's probably below 10, maybe even only just enough to get going.

Also from a business standpoint you should _not_ reinvest your whole profit into your only game because each game has only a limited audience and lifetime. If they would throw 10 millions at MWO they MAYBE would make SOME of us super-happy but i doubt they will ever see their investment back.

Instead you need to invest into other games as well at some point to make your company safe for the future. That's what PGI tries with MW5.

Of cause you will still reinvest some of your profits into your existing game because that's what's keeping you alive and allows you to develop new games. With a big feature like Solaris you can see that PGI indeed does this. It may not be the feature everyone here in the forums wants, but it's a new feature nontheless...

November11th, on 03 February 2018 - 11:39 PM, said:

I know solaris is comming, but im actually really forward to that or bolt ons. Id really rather have them fix this super broken game instead of the constant nerfs and rebalances and hot fixes when nerfs go arwy.

I tell you a secret: Almost all online games are super-broken if you ask their community. Take a look into any successful game forum and you will see threads stating that they are broken almost daily. This is the result of today's sample:

But I think the problem is, is that blizzard are listening to snowflake players

This game has been going downhill since the earlier seasons. every new season riot seems to care less and less about the players outside of a specific group (the pros). they dont focus on champions that need attention and keep messing with the ones that dont really need imediate looks.

Hey War Gaming! Do you EVEN read these comments?
If so then how about addressing some of the NUMEROUS concerns regarding the game!! and replying to some of these comments. No BS answers just some REAL responses! Show that you give a f**k about what all these people are complaining about and/or recommending...

Don't get me wrong, this is not meant as whataboutism. MWO indeed has problems including some balancing aspects. PGI has done many mistakes and will do more in the future. But they also did a lot right, otherwise we would not play this game.

The problem is that everyone of us has a different vision on what MWO should be like and how we would like them to balance it. PGI can't make all of us happy, it's impossible (and i use this word very rarely).

And by looking at other much more successful games you can see the truth in this. They all have many players who do not agree with the current game state or it's direction regardless on how successful it is and the devs never seem to listen to the community.

In the end we should of cause keep saying in a constructive way what we don't like (that's important), but we can't expect that MWO will ever become our personal dream-game. The possibility is VERY slim given all the many directions the game could take and the sometimes vastly different opinions in the community.

I think by keeping this in mind we can have more fun playing the game instead of getting dragged down by what we think is problematic. For example my fun and performance increased significantly as soon as i stopped caring for MM and the bad teams it brings sometimes. I just do my best to enable even the most potato team to win and this attitude seems to have an impact on my stats too.

Edited by Daggett, 04 February 2018 - 09:06 AM.

[Kotzi]

Because this if f2p. Thus they have to genereat stuff to make people spend money. Maps and Gamemechanics dont give that much of potential revenue so Mechs, Skins, Decals and all the other stuff that you can buy have higher priority. Thats common economical sense.

[kuma8877]

sycocys, on 04 February 2018 - 02:09 AM, said:

They've been "hiring" for 5 years.

So either they aren't actually hiring -or- nobody wants to work for them. Probably a bit of both.

Or companies like Amazon and Cloud Imperium Games have scooped up all the really talented code level engineers in Cryengine to make it harder to bring in talent to make deep level changes. It's not like Cryengine had really saturated the market with games so that most of the industry was working with it. There's just not that many experts in CE's use and they are probably well paid at either Amazon or CIG at this point. And with Crytech being on the financial ropes, there's not a ton of incentive for up and coming coders and designers to become proficient in it's use.

Samial, on 04 February 2018 - 03:21 AM, said:

Check Glass door (I think thats what its called) and look for PGI that will give you some idea if its worth working there or not.

https://www.glassdoo...44886.11,24.htm

It's actually gotten much better there if you read the reviews in chronological order and account for the fact that many were written around the time IGP and PGI split.

[Scyther]

Always fun to see someone who has no clue what it takes to run a business bring out the 'why doesn't all the money they make improve the game?' argument.

Money is one issue. Businesses are expensive to run, digital distribution or no. Look at the history of gaming companies over the past 30 years... company after company shut down and gone, even those who developed awesome products.

The real question you want to be asking is "Why are decisions being made that alienate players, don't bring in more income, fail to develop the IP, or waste time developing things that don't actually improve the game?"

As Daggett points out, those are fair questions that virtually all MMO developers face on their forums every day. Apparently nobody budgets for things like bringing in a focus group of target-market players for a week, run them through the NPE and some mixed casual/group gameplay, and make notes of the things they like/dislike about the game.

Because that would be crazy.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

many good folks (Animators for example) leave PGi 2014/15 going to other Companys like Relic or build up own Studios ..PGI is very good for first steps in gaming Industry ...further many seeing better chances to other Companys not in a small Studio with Devs thats have to big or to less Indeas and to less Experience in Gamemaking

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 04 February 2018 - 09:45 AM.

[ForceUser]

sycocys, on 04 February 2018 - 02:09 AM, said:

They've been "hiring" for 5 years.

So either they aren't actually hiring -or- nobody wants to work for them. Probably a bit of both.

Or maybe they did actually hire a whole second team to work on MW5.

*illuminati music*

[Escef]

While I don't think PGI is crying poverty, I don't think they're making money "hand over fist", either. If they were poor they wouldn't be able to afford to make MW5. If they had the money some people think they do than they would not have needed to try to crowdfund the aborted Transverse project. PGI has had a few years since Transverse to bankroll money (and I think part of that bankroll was reserved for legal costs for the eventual HG lawsuit), so between the money the company has saved up and the relative safety of the franchise they've pushed forward with MW5 without crowdfunding.

[ForceUser]

Daggett, on 04 February 2018 - 05:55 AM, said:

*Pure truth nectar*

Reading this made me tingly all over.

[Seranov]

ForceUser, on 04 February 2018 - 09:58 AM, said:

Reading this made me tingly all over.

That's what a good forum post actually looks like. You may never see one again, for they are absurdly rare.

[Dnyarri]

It is all about economics and mathematics. If I spend $5.00 to make $10.00 I make $5.00 profit. If I spend $10.00 to make $14.00 it is only $4.00 profit. If they choose to hire an additional programmer that person needs to be worth at least their salary in revenue or it isn't worth it financially.

I really wish MWO had the ability to invest in its own resources and make MWO the game we all wish it was, but there isn't much economic incentive to do so. The odds of hiring more personnel and turning MWO into an even bigger cash cow is slim. Neither Mech Warrior nor PGI has the clout to be worth a huge investment.

[Ensaine]

Sad thing is, they WOULD be making money hand over fist if ___________ and if _________ ______. Also, if they had ______ instead of ____, we'd most likely have a much stronger player base, thus, more mechs and mech packs.

And, on another note, if they had done _________, then we may not be asking the questions we're currently asking. But, instead they did ______________, and ___________, even though it was announced they wouldn't.

They also added _____ _____, which blew everyone away, half literally, away from this game.

The release of _______ _______, which was supposed to have __________, and ___________, and even ______, fell way short.

So, as you can see, things would most likely be very different, if only they ________.

Edited by Ensaine, 04 February 2018 - 03:57 PM.

[JC Daxion]

Daggett, on 04 February 2018 - 05:55 AM, said:

I tell you a secret: Almost all online games are super-broken if you ask their community. Take a look into any successful game forum and you will see threads stating that they are broken almost daily. This is the result of today's sample:

and the worst thing they can do are to listen to just one tiny vocal group that is never satisfied no matter what you do.


according to players.. EA, bioware, ubisoft, blizzard.. and many others have not made a good game in 20 years..


I can only imagine the outrage these days if a game like Mass effect 1 launched with that abomination called side quest planets and that god awful rover that was more about spending 10-15 driving across the absolute worst game area, only to find a reused level, that repeated over and over agian for lame loot and a few XP.. Yet mass effect 1, is talked about as one of the best RPG's of all time, and Andromeda which after replaying the first series again just before firing up Andromeda i could see leaps and bounds of improvements, form ground vehicles to ship and everything in between..

The oddest part was dragon age 2, was drilled for reusing areas, when Mass effect was givin a complete pass.


My point is, people ***** about everything these days and just reading the posts by some you can see they just don't want to see the good side of anything. I haven't found a game worth a 1, even if i didn't enjoy it. Sad to see so many people rather a game company fail, than please someone else besides yourself.

I'll add, if this game ended up being something i hated, and others loved.. Id be sad.. but i would move on.. not sit here for years bitching about what the game became.

[JC Daxion]

Escef, on 04 February 2018 - 09:56 AM, said:

While I don't think PGI is crying poverty, I don't think they're making money "hand over fist", either. If they were poor they wouldn't be able to afford to make MW5. If they had the money some people think they do than they would not have needed to try to crowdfund the aborted Transverse project. PGI has had a few years since Transverse to bankroll money (and I think part of that bankroll was reserved for legal costs for the eventual HG lawsuit), so between the money the company has saved up and the relative safety of the franchise they've pushed forward with MW5 without crowdfunding.

Maybe i am wrong on this, But don't you find it interesting that came when PGI was splitting with IGP, and the downfall of mech warrior tactics? IMO i don't think players know how close this game came to folding and that was the whole reason why that happened. Maybe i am wrong, but the clues are all there. In the end the got the rights, and did not have to venture on with their own IP..

Maybe i'm wrong but transverse was all about trying to keep a game company going before a deal was made that gave them the rights to continue. they wanted a what if, worst case this whole thing goes all sorts of wrong and we can't make Mech warrior anymore. I don't have any proof of this, but it sure does fit the scenario. especially seeing how much of a different direction it too at the split right after transverse, and the entire new life that came to the game, despite it not pleasing some.