19 replies to this topic

[Carebear]

It can be done. I wonder how Mechwarrior Onlines dev performs. I must say I know wargaming.net is very respectable company around the world, even most dont know it. Aye, I just knew these guys had it in them.

As the game has grown to reach over 20 million registered users, developer Wargaming.net has scaled with it - 18 months ago the business consisted of 120 employees primarily based in Minsk. Today it is approaching 800 staff around the globe

http://www.gamesindu...-digit-millions

Edited by Carebear, 19 March 2012 - 05:55 AM.

[Adridos]

If they get successful in catching most of the BTech fans and some mech fans along with it, 1-2 million per month will not be a problem.ň

Also, increasing the number of people workig on the game is just on IGP. PGI just makes the game.

[Carebear]

Lets hope so. I'd still ask game price. Dont give nothing for free.

Edited by Carebear, 19 March 2012 - 05:59 AM.

[DeM0nFiRe]

The problem is that wargaming is a very bad company in terms of how they treat their players. They have a bad habit of lying through their teeth to their players, and refusing to acknowkedge any issues in the game. However, it's basically the only action oriented multiplayer tank game out there, so they know they can make money off of it either way.

In any case, they make their money by selling power and by witholding basic gameplay (You can't play with your friends unless you pay to make a platoon? What the heck is that? ). PGI have already said they will not be selling power, and I can only hope they won't do something so ridiculous as to keep you from being able to play with friends unless you pay.

[Carebear]

I didnt like much their system either. I really prefer simple and neat like APB.

[BeforeLife]

No you can play with platoon with your freinds w/o paying now, however if you want to play with 2 of them instead of just one you have to get premium, but ya dont have to pay anymore

[forcestormx]

As a WoT player since last June, I can state without doubt that WG.net is a company with a good idea and poor follow-through. It's not so much that they are actively screwing over the NA playerbase, it's more that they are too interested in catering to their largest playerbase in RU, and they have differing priorities. Their main issues are constant delays, terrible matchmaking, and poor balancing metrics.

But for all that I'm a military history buff and I've had fun with WoT, I just don't see me hanging on much longer with the way things are going there.

Their moneymaking model is also a poor thing to parallel, it's too close to encouraging a pay2win feeling among some customers.

The point is that I like WoT, but I wish some company other than WG.net had it.

Edited by forcestormx, 19 March 2012 - 06:52 AM.

[Gigaton]

DeM0nFiRe, on 19 March 2012 - 06:11 AM, said:

In any case, they make their money by selling power and by witholding basic gameplay (You can't play with your friends unless you pay to make a platoon? What the heck is that? ). PGI have already said they will not be selling power, and I can only hope they won't do something so ridiculous as to keep you from being able to play with friends unless you pay.

When compared to average F2P game? I don't think WoT has much P2W at all. The main force that drives people to pay for WoT is frustration. You can buy money grinder tanks and faster progression with gold (and gold you buy with real cash), and the large gaps in power at middle tiers are there to ensure that people won't try to dally too long enjoying those tanks and push quckly fowards towards the top.

And then they hit the fact that the top tanks can't be maintained easily, so either the players need to buy a premium account or use lower tier grinder tanks, or combination of both. And again, the power gap at mid tiers is there to entice people to buy one of the high tier gold bought credit grinder tanks (which cost about as much as a game off shelf).

That's the business model of World of Tanks, as far as I see it.

Edited by Gigaton, 19 March 2012 - 07:09 AM.

[Bloody Moon]

My god... You took the least funny quote from the whole article.

Quote

"Of the 20 million registered users"

(3-4 million EU as far as i know)

If you take a look at the amount of players online it is pretty sad that EU that is only 75k-ish in peak times and 3-7k in the night. That means only the most hardcore grinder and the paying customers remain.

Quote

"Kislyi is proud of the number of players actually paying for content in the game"

Riiiiight, when the game literally forces you to pay if you want to play endgame content, not to mention the immense grind without paying (2-3000 battles for ONE properly equipped endgame tank, depending on player skill, thats around 330-500 hour playtime on average counted with 10min battles).

Quote

"We probably have one of the highest payment ratios in the industry, it's around 25-30 per cent," he revealed. "Because people love the game."

This is where i couldn't stop laughing. Players love the game? Nothing to do with the issues i mentioned above?

Quote

"Ironically the game is not squeezing monetisation, it's not rough. There's no velvet rope over the gates and you have to buy a key to open it. Some MMOs are like this but we are not. It's smooth and non-intrusive," he insisted.

Wait what? Pure lie. When playing the game you have exactly two roads ahead of you till you reach the t8-9 tanks an easy one for the paying customers and one with barbed wires every half meter with an immense wall around halfway (the grinding for your t5 in most of the t4 tanks).

Quote

"For casual gameplay which most players do most of the time, people don't usually use gold or expendables. Of course if you want to win a tournament, if you're competitive, if you play clan wars, if you want to be at the top, we think it's appropriate to expect a little bit of money from you because you already spent hundreds of hours in our game and that's much more than the value of any $50 box. But it's still a micro transaction game, you would have to be very creative to spend $1000."

Actually the part when for the 80% of the playerbase the repair costs of the top tanks is not covered by the gained ingame credits per game without paying or farming in low repair cost ones is acceptable. But the part where you have to pay roughly 3-4 eurocents per shot for the OP ammo is not considering you can easily fire 10-20 shells in an average 5-15min game. About being creative to spend 1000 dollars? If you consider a premium tank roughly costs 20-25 euros depending on the deal that may be true on the other hand if you want to buy the relatively new op tanks (currently the french endtier tanks) from your previously saved up xp the conversion comes down to roughly 90-100 euros is the XP for the t9-10 tanks plus another 25-50 euros if you lack the ingame credits to buy it (keep in mind tho these are the numbers without playing the actual tank lines). For a bit more information 1 EUR is around 1.30 USD according to this page: http://www.oanda.com...storical-rates/ .

Most of the numbers i used are only estimates 'cos i couldn't be bothered to recount them with more than 2 tanks (one from the higher and one from the lower end of the xp/credit/gold ammo cost).

Didn't bother to read the article further on sry, it was too much stuffed with lies, half-truths and lacking background information.

Edited by Bloody Moon, 19 March 2012 - 07:33 AM.

[GuntherK]

Adridos, on 19 March 2012 - 05:56 AM, said:

Also, increasing the number of people workig on the game is just on IGP. PGI just makes the game.

What ?
PGI isnt making a launch and forget game, their team has to remain assembled and working in the project.
IGP is responsible for stuff like distribution, marketing, etc

If PGI decides after launch they need more people to make the game more awesome they can do it.

[DeM0nFiRe]

Gigaton, on 19 March 2012 - 07:00 AM, said:

When compared to average F2P game? I don't think WoT has much P2W at all. The main force that drive people to pay for WoT is frustration. You can buy money grinder tanks and faster progression with gold, and the large gaps in power at middle tiers are there to ensure that people won't try to dally too long enjoying those tanks and push quckly fowards towards the top.

For one thing, some of the premium tanks are overpowered. Valentine, Matilda, Ram, Type-59, all of those tanks are ones which have no counter because they have an inordinate amount of armor, rounds bounce off of them because of their low profile, and they are too fast and too well armed for the battles they are put in.

For another thing, those rounds you have to pay for are definitely overpowered. Huge damage and huge penetration basically breaks all of the balance of the rest of the game.

[Gigaton]

Only gold round that's truly OP is the one from VK36's P2W gun. Other rounds aren't good enough to use outside special situations. I disagree with you about all those premium tanks, too. I actually feel the German premium H35 is the most overpowered gold tank in the game. But this thread isn't really place to go more in-depth on that, though free feel to PM me (here or on WOT EU or US forums) if you want to discuss that further.

[forcestormx]

DeM0nFiRe, on 19 March 2012 - 07:08 AM, said:

For another thing, those rounds you have to pay for are definitely overpowered. Huge damage and huge penetration basically breaks all of the balance of the rest of the game.

In-tier and cross-tier balancing failures and overall tier spreads are what breaks the balance, not gold rounds. Gold rounds break individual encounters, but the general line of battle is what breaks the larger balance.

Simply put, yes WG makes money, but in a way that makes you feel dirty for paying them. A model I hope is not adopted elsewhere.

Edited by forcestormx, 19 March 2012 - 07:18 AM.

[Carebear]

People are going to hate me but I think pay to win is the right way, you need to give something good in return. Anyway. I just hope we see something like this here and devs doesnt slow down and we start to get fast content. Tell me one company who does something similiar.

Edited by Carebear, 19 March 2012 - 07:54 AM.

[AlanEsh]

Carebear, on 19 March 2012 - 05:59 AM, said:

Lets hope so. I'd still ask game price. Dont give nothing for free.

If MWO is priced anywhere near WoT, I won't be playing. WoT's horrible gold scaling and price in general is entirely out of line for a 20 map shooter with crappy match making for 30 person death match.

[jjuurriijj]

Not many people are happy with WoT. Balance can be pretty terrible, real currency is required in higher tiers and it lacks updates that are really needed - half of the news get downvoted because they don't bring what the game really lacks (still only one game mode as far as I know).

[Bloody Moon]

Carebear, on 19 March 2012 - 07:53 AM, said:

People are going to hate me but I think pay to win is the right way, you need to give something good in return.

1. P2W often raises balance issues in F2P games.

2. Who wants to come home from a vacation to realize his 1000hours of playtime and 100 EURs of invested money only to realize the game is flooded with the current top premium mechs so he should cash out another 25 or more EUR just to keep the games fair for him?

3. Do you want your fav mech gather only dust in the hangar after 1-2 months of it's release only cos the new premium mech performs better in every possible way?

I certainly don't want either of those so no thanks to P2W.

Luckily for us so far the devs agree with me so far.

Edited by Bloody Moon, 19 March 2012 - 08:26 AM.

[Maris]

1-2 million?

I think you are mistaken, they are making double digits.

"Those would be millions of dollars [of profits] per month," he said of. "Many millions. I'm not going to give you the exact number, but double digits. Not high double digits."

But good to hear, World of Tanks is a good game. It has its flaws and if you are really looking to be competitive in clan wars, WoT isn't the best game to be involved in due to premium ammo.

However, if you are looking for a game to play with your friends for ***** and giggles, WoT is a brilliant game to play with your mates. I play it almost every night.

[FallguySoldier]

I was just about to create a new thread regarding F2P and my concerns with it (mainly the whole P2W factor), because let's face it: Nothing sucks more than trying to play competitively against players only to find out some (if not most) people are buying the best gear with real-life money, for instant wins. But then I started noticing how pretty much all of those types of threads got closed rather quickly. Luckily, I found one particular thread where the moderator mentioned that even if this game is going to be F2P, the devs will make sure that P2W won't come along with it. Crossing my fingers here... (Otherwise, why not just make the game B2P? And no, I'm not talking about offering premium accounts.)

[metro]

F2P....per the MW:O devs

will succeed.

questions?