78 replies to this topic

[Feral Clown]

If there are not going to be World Championships and no need for a special place to launch MW5, there really is no point in wasting any money having a mechcon unless it was completely self sufficient through ticket sales and advertising....which it wouldn't be.

At this point fans of the franchise and genre should be the ones throwing the nerd parties and not PGI.

I absolutely would however purchase a tournament supporter pack to support the prize pool for the players if they were going to have a world championships, as long as they didn't run stock nonsense again. Don't even need a warhorn or swag, just make it a 50/50 with 50% going to the participants and the rest dedicated to MWO (read not a penny of it going towards MW5).

[ForceUser]

Feral Clown, on 05 June 2019 - 06:15 PM, said:

Don't even need a warhorn or swag, just make it a 50/50 with 50% going to the participants and the rest dedicated to MWO (read not a penny of it going towards MW5).

I thought about this mentality the other day and it seemed to be a very strange way of thinking.

What I mean by that is that PGI is a single publisher / dev studio. They are not separate dev studios under one publisher or even multiple publishers like Activision Blizzard was. It doesn't matter the source of the income stream, the funds go to whatever project requires it. Or heck, most of the time it's not even that clear; all projects will to some degree get a part of the incoming funds regardless of any decision made.

Let me explain with an analogy. Let take an ice cream company that develops new flavours of ice cream and sells them. Lets say they want to branch out and start making frozen yoghurt. Where does the money come from to buy the equipment or hire the people? Does it come from the proceeds of selling the ice cream perhaps? Well unless you get outside source of funds then yes.

Now of course that doesn't stop them from developing new flavours of ice cream, or expanding the ice cream part of the business to keep up with demand, but the company has been doing relatively well and can to expand it's offerings.

Does that mean that the person buying the ice cream get to tell the ice cream company where the $30 they spend on ice cream every month go? Let say that person doesn't like frozen yoghurt, can that person tell the company not to spend any of the money he pays for ice cream go to the frozen yoghurt part of the company?

I mean I guess that person is completely in his right to no longer support that ice cream company, because he really *really* hates frozen yoghurt, but the truth is that the ice cream business isn't what it used to be. a lot of people have stopped buying ice cream and they need to diversify or die. People aren't buying the new flavours of ice cream, at least not enough to cover the cost of developing them.

That doesn't mean the ice cream part of the company will shut down, not for a very long time and maybe they'll be able to build a brand new ice cream factory in the future that will allow them to make all kinds of new flavours and do it more efficiently, with prettier packaging and sprinkles, because people love sprinkles...

Anyway, MWO is just one of the products PGI develops and sells. The money from that product goes to salaries, lease, water, electricity, computers, etc. Those things then get used to make the products PGI sells. I mean yes, there will be developers that work exclusively on MWO content and some that work exclusively on MW5 content. But once a product is no longer viable, or might soon become no longer viable, they need to have something that will be or they close up.

Basically PGI is one company with multiple products, not multiple companies, each with their own products. You can't say that you want your money to only go to X product, that is up to PGI. If they mismanage that part then they close down and it's on them. If the manage it well then they stay open and grow and expand their product line...

Oh hay... look at that.

Edited by ForceUser, 05 June 2019 - 06:56 PM.

[50 50]

Tina Benoit, on 04 June 2019 - 02:39 PM, said:

MechCon and MWO World Championships
We're highly considering hosting a MechCon 2019, and in that consideration, we'd like to hear the community's interest in it. Note that organizing this event does not interfere with the development of MWO or MW5.
MechCon 2019 would be hosted in the same venue as last year, the Vancouver Convention Center at the beginning of December with very similar content to participate in, such as the MW5 Sim Pods, Table Top gaming booth, MWO Solaris, a live stream booth from our Twitch channel, Developer Q&A’s in addition to having special guests in attendance.
However, the catering and the on-site World Championship finals are the only items which we would not repeat this year. That being said, a MWO World Championship is still happening if there is competitive interest for such a tournament in which we would support with Tournament Supporter Packs.
These two items will depend on hearing the community’s interest following this Dev Update

Hi Tina.

Just my 2c worth on the MechCon.
While I have not been able to physically attend (distance and cost etc) I have always tried to follow what has been going on via youtube or twitch or forums.
Given the intention of making the worldcup side of it offsite and therefore an online interaction I see some opportunity to expand on that visiblity.
Having some live twitch streams of the stage for announcements and presentations and crowd watching.
The interview booth was good last year.
What about streaming the action from the pods and Solaris matches?
Get some cameras on the tabletop action and stream that.

I am going to assume that the World Cup matches would be streamed to the event for the attendees but in between those matches what about having it linked into streams from players that are not attending?

Promotion wise, get something up on Steam, Discord, Twitch in advance.
If the competition will be player driven lets make sure we have enough lead up to it to allow the players to promote it within their various circles.
What about local venues for the comp teams? It's like throwing an old fashioned LAN party we can now 'televise'.

[dr3dnought]

This should be posted on the front page as an announcement, like the posts announcing the date(s) of the dev update. People are still wondering why there haven't been new mech packs.

Also it should have been posted earlier.

[ForceUser]

justcallme A S H, on 05 June 2019 - 05:30 PM, said:

Source for that 200k? That is going to be way, waaaay off the mark.

So I was listening to an NGNG stream just now. According to Daeron the con was "over 400k": https://youtu.be/CKRpCbgTO7U?t=2217

So it's possible the 200k I heard was the costs without WC because Daeron also noted that WC was the largest part of the cons in terms of costs: https://youtu.be/CKRpCbgTO7U?t=1922

Like I said, it was 7 months ago so not maliciously wrong, just slightly wrong

So if they do cut out WC then yes they could do Mechcon without much impact financially, but only if they get similar numbers (1k people). Also, only 1 day due to not having to do WC.

Edited by ForceUser, 05 June 2019 - 08:48 PM.

[GweNTLeR]

IMO screw MECHCON, better put those resources to FP development and MW5 advertising. There are too few players for good competition anyways.
However, if you want to gain some money from players - you can release MWO supporter pack. Similar to MECHCON supporter pack(or whatever it is called). I really liked 2017 camo and would surely buy another like that.

[Feral Clown]

ForceUser, on 05 June 2019 - 06:55 PM, said:

Words.....

I am a customer and I absolutely can say where I would put my money. All your sensless babble is redundant because PGI as an independant business can make the decision to have a 50/50 with the money going to support the only product I am interested in, or they could say 'no we are not going to promise that'.

[ForceUser]

Feral Clown, on 05 June 2019 - 11:31 PM, said:

I am a customer and I absolutely can say where I would put my money.

That's not what I said though.

I said you can't tell PGI where they should put the money. I also explained why they also can't (not won't) split the money in that way either as they are one studio, not multiple studios. I get it was a lot of words but if you read them you wouldn't have misunderstood me. I thought it was a rather clever analogy, personally

Edited by ForceUser, 06 June 2019 - 12:55 AM.

[Appogee]

Thank you. It's nice to know our community manager is across the facts and communicating them to us.

Edited by Appogee, 06 June 2019 - 01:13 AM.

[Thorn Hallis]

All I want is the Crusader. I don't care if its niche or DOA or whatever.

[Koniving]

50 50, on 05 June 2019 - 01:36 AM, said:

Well it's like any other game specific convention right?
CitizenCon for Star Citizen.
That it's on might generate some additional interest in the IP but otherwise, it's there for the fans.

While CitizenCon is primarily for the many investing players. it was often held in public venues with an open door policy, and footage of its multiple hours of footage getting split up into meaningful chunks on a media platform that people actually can casually look at (youtube) rather than something more invite-only and user unfriendly (twitch), gaining a million+ views across multiple channels and iterations of the same footage for a nine hour presentation, with comments asking about the game, how to get into it, etc.

They even produce in-universe advertising videos that advertise something available to buy, showcase the graphics, the universe, the writing talent, the immersion, and most importantly... the confidence and professionalism of a team that knows it can do the task.

There hasn't been a video advertising anything about MWO since the faction warfare trailer 2 years ago and the Solaris 7 trailer last year. And to be honest I didn't even know there was a solaris trailer so that gives an idea of how well communicated that might have been..

[ShaneoftheDead]

Thank you Tina.

Some recommendations for you to pass on to your Leadership:

• Focus on making MW5:M a fun game to play. Find a balance between visuals and performance.
  
• Advertise MW5:M in Steam, Epic Launcher, Facebook, where ever.
  
• Find one or more popular Twitch streamers you can afford and pay them to play MW5:M for a week right after launch. They should not be ones that play MWO already, you want to find new audiences with that money. Schedule this with them ahead of time.
  
• Dream up some fun events for MW5:M that the community can participate in someway. Maybe "Best Screen-Shot of the Week" and give out a prize?

[Feral Clown]

ForceUser, on 06 June 2019 - 12:52 AM, said:

That's not what I said though.

I said you can't tell PGI where they should put the money. I also explained why they also can't (not won't) split the money in that way either as they are one studio, not multiple studios. I get it was a lot of words but if you read them you wouldn't have misunderstood me. I thought it was a rather clever analogy, personally

So, you think you're clever, good stuff as self esteem is important. However you read into what I said and I am asserting my rights as a customer. You also have no way of knowing what PGI will do...none of us do as they're a quite frustratingly baffling company.

But hey, give yourself a hug you deserve it.

[Verilligo]

Feral Clown, on 06 June 2019 - 10:34 AM, said:

So, you think you're clever, good stuff as self esteem is important. However you read into what I said and I am asserting my rights as a customer. You also have no way of knowing what PGI will do...none of us do as they're a quite frustratingly baffling company.

But hey, give yourself a hug you deserve it.

If you spend $10 on a supporter pack with $5 of it going MWO development, but they then take $5 out of the MWO development budget at the same time they put your $5 into it, they will have technically filled your demand. Not one cent of YOUR money went to MW5, but $5 of someone else's money was. At the end of the day, it's all coming out of the exact same bank account and you don't have a legal leg to stand on because "development" is such a nebulous term. Not to stand against you trying to exert your consumer rights, but you aren't right just because you're the customer.

[Wolfos31]

Feral Clown, on 06 June 2019 - 10:34 AM, said:

So, you think you're clever, good stuff as self esteem is important. However you read into what I said and I am asserting my rights as a customer. You also have no way of knowing what PGI will do...none of us do as they're a quite frustratingly baffling company.

But hey, give yourself a hug you deserve it.

To assert your rights as a consumer you can either give PGI money because you like what they are currently doing or you can not. If you give them money you no longer have control over how that money is used.

Unless they setup a preorder where you pay $20 to gain access to MWO's new FP or some tangible, separate, exclusive digital content they have no obligation to deliver on demands you make of them.

So saying something like "I'll pay $10 for a Tournament Supporter Pack, but only if you PROMISE that not a dollar gets used for MW5" means nothing and is impossible to enforce. Even if they honored your wishes they could use the workaround that Verilligo laid out and still be fulfilling your wishes if not the intent behind them.

[thievingmagpi]

could not care less about mechcon.



funds should go towards the game. development. maps. toss a bit at the World Championship like maybe buying the casters a green screen.

Edited by thievingmagpi, 06 June 2019 - 01:02 PM.

[Feral Clown]

Verilligo, on 06 June 2019 - 10:59 AM, said:

If you spend $10 on a supporter pack with $5 of it going MWO development, but they then take $5 out of the MWO development budget at the same time they put your $5 into it, they will have technically filled your demand. Not one cent of YOUR money went to MW5, but $5 of someone else's money was. At the end of the day, it's all coming out of the exact same bank account and you don't have a legal leg to stand on because "development" is such a nebulous term. Not to stand against you trying to exert your consumer rights, but you aren't right just because you're the customer.

What? Is there any point to your conjecture at all? What are you even talking about 'legal rights'? Simple fact is PGI could announce that they will or will not go with a 50/50 plan or not. Really simple stuff here and as a customer with money, I can decide if I am right or if PGI is right or if anyone is right, in fact it isn't even a right or wrong statement/question/debate...at all.

[Feral Clown]

Wolfos31, on 06 June 2019 - 12:35 PM, said:

To assert your rights as a consumer you can either give PGI money because you like what they are currently doing or you can not. If you give them money you no longer have control over how that money is used.

Unless they setup a preorder where you pay $20 to gain access to MWO's new FP or some tangible, separate, exclusive digital content they have no obligation to deliver on demands you make of them.

So saying something like "I'll pay $10 for a Tournament Supporter Pack, but only if you PROMISE that not a dollar gets used for MW5" means nothing and is impossible to enforce. Even if they honored your wishes they could use the workaround that Verilligo laid out and still be fulfilling your wishes if not the intent behind them.

Or...like what I am saying PGI and only PGI could say that they are going to do a 50/50 and use their half for MWO which certainly this far along in the development phase of MW5 is not reaching.

If they did announce that they'd use the WC money for keeping the servers on, I'd go with that and skip all the mental gymnastics some of you folks are hilariously spinning and would be looking to enforce nothing.

Please stop being silly, this is how I feel and what my opinion is and if you don't like coming up with ridiculous scenarios or conjecture or rhetoric is not in any way going to change anything.

[Dee Eight]

MWO could have been an esport if they'd ran the worlds for it at one of the video gaming conventions that already existed. E3 or any of the PAX's would have been a better venue. You've got a huge convention center already full of gamers, many of whom are likely unaware of MWO & Battletech even existing.

[justcallme A S H]

ForceUser, on 05 June 2019 - 08:46 PM, said:

So I was listening to an NGNG stream just now. According to Daeron the con was "over 400k": https://youtu.be/CKRpCbgTO7U?t=2217

So it's possible the 200k I heard was the costs without WC because Daeron also noted that WC was the largest part of the cons in terms of costs: https://youtu.be/CKRpCbgTO7U?t=1922

So if they do cut out WC then yes they could do Mechcon without much impact financially, but only if they get similar numbers (1k people). Also, only 1 day due to not having to do WC.

so you've been to MechCon yet somehow grossly underestimated what it would cost to run... Over 400k is a far cry from 200k. And not saying you said that maliciously, but surely you would've thought about it for a second.

TBH - I think Daeron is a off the mark there. No disrepect to the man either, I'd call us mates, this is just a firm difference of opinion and I'll go into why...

The single biggest cost was venue hire/catering. That has absolutely nothing to do with World Champs, nothing. Prev MechCons have been single day and World Champs slotted into that just fine in '16/'17. The choice by PGI to expand MechCon over 2 days (and double ticket sales) and resulting increase to baseline costs was their choice alone. To attribute that to World Champs is misguided.

Between flying out players, accommodation & prize money - The World Champs cost ~60k in raw cash off the top of my head calculation which is generous. So over 400k vs 65k.

Now I said earlier there are hard/fixed costs. Just open the doors incurs fixed cost and thus the rest are shared throughout the event... Just to name a few:

• Venue Rental / Catering packages
  
• Production / Lighting / Sound / Stage
  
• PGI Staff costs
  
• MW5 Pods
  
• MWO Solaris Section (14 spots IIRC)
  
• Booths for each area/stand

The big one is obviously the first line. The 2nd - If you want to stream it all online (advertise) - There is a base fixed cost there. To have a stage for presentations that has lighting/audio to cover the entire venue, roaming/mobile cameramen video/audio - All those costs are still going to be there in a venue that size. World Champs or no World Champs.

You could absolutely reduce the costs (by removing World Champs) but only to a degree. The fixed minimum cost to open is still high and are always big hitters when running events / business. Most things on top (eg: extra 4 set of lights, speakers, extra 20m of staging) don't add signifincant cost over the base expense and usually cheaper as you scale up.

So was World Champs the big uber drain/expense on MechCon? Nope. The biggest one was making it 2 days. That right there more than doubled the expense.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 06 June 2019 - 03:35 PM.