Jack Gilligan
Dragon's Rage
KIA Alliance
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Posted - 2009.01.05 16:01:00 -
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Edited by: Jack Gilligan on 05/01/2009 16:02:55
 Originally by: KiaTader
Edited by: KiaTader on 04/01/2009 00:03:18
Has CCP ever wondered what it would be like for them if they earned twice as much and be 10x as successful as now if only they didn't cater to such a small market?
Do you think CCP would ever give in to the hunger for a faster car irl, or a few more ho ho ho's at christmas by making the game more casual friendly and safe so they get more subscribers, and in that turn, more money for their pockets?
I'm talking from 300.000 subscribers to 2mil+ !
"Well done dev team, we're earning 10x as much now! Here's a raise in your pay and a big fat bonus!"
/discuss
There once was a Sci-Fi/space MMO that was skills based and didn't have levels. It was considered to be very hard core, and at one time, certain characters (not ships) could be PERMANENTLY killed if they died too many times, either to pvp or pve.
It had at it's peak about 300,000 subs, same as EVE today. It was at that peak when it was the most hardcore.
The developers and publisher then began to think like the OP, that they can have "millions of subs" due to WOW. So they set out (behind the player's backs, who liked the game very much as it was and just wanted bug and balance fixes and content added) to change the game twice within a 6 month period, the first change dumbing down the combat system and introducing levels, and the second cutting 32 professions down to 9 and removing skills entirely. Combat was speeded up to the point your character appeared to be on speed or something, and replaced turn based combat with a pseudo FPS. One of the 9 professions used to be an alpha class, most powerful in the game, that took months or YEARS of work in game to unlock and template was now given away at character creation and nerfed into one of the weakest. This was the equivalent of giving noob toons a Titan on character creation but nerfing it down to being a Rifter w/ civilian gatling guns.
The result? 300,000 subscribers shrank to 30,000 (or less) which is where they are at currently. 3 years of trying to tweak the new game core systems that nobody wanted hasn't done anything to heal the unprecedented breach of trust between game developer and game player, nor returned many (if any) of the hundreds of thousands of former subscribers.
I am, of course, speaking of Sony Online Entertainment and the infamous Star Wars Galaxies "New Game Experience".
CCP, DONT make the mistake they made. Had they kept on with the original core concept of SWG, just as you have with EVE, they might be celebrating another year of growth for a 5+ year old game just as EVE is.
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My opinions are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my corp or alliance. |