Xeeh_Bitz posted...Demonee-Ho posted...
"The past few years"
By then the population would have stabilized, that is to say those who had already bought the game wouldn't need to buy another copy. 7 million is just indicative of the flow of people into the game. Those already playing the game contributed money via in-game shops. Costumes, minis and cosmetic doodads generated income form players already in the game.
Oh and in-game cosmetic doodads and convenience items have the potential to generate large sums of revenue. Look at most F2P games, and look at why many MMOs decided to go F2P.
If the box price becomes an obstacle to people accessing the Gem Shop, and if their projections shows that they would make enough money off of the Gem Shop alone, there's the possibility that they would discount or even make the game free.
TF2 shows that this method works. Take away the barrier to entry and have the newcomers splurge on the item shop items. (Let's hope GW2 doesn't take it as far as to ruin the game's balance as Valve did with TF2)
But maybe what you said about NCSoft shoveling them money is also true. That's also another resource they have. NCSoft likely has some level of faith into the project in order to shovel them so much money.
Yeah, have you seen the game ever get close to free? lol
Guess this is why..
http://mmofallout.com/2012/02/15/ncsoft-q4-finances-salesprofit-down/ <--Chart for the past 7 or so years.
and NCSoft went F2P route with Aion, cash shop just is not doing so well.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/08/08/ncsoft-weathers-6m-loss-in-q2/
Aion was also blamed for the company's financial woes, as revenues in that title sharply decreased due to fewer microtransaction sales.
People just are not buying the entire microtransaction thing, Aion is now a completely F2P game so people can easily put a few bucks here and there into the cash shop, but NCSoft is experiencing slight discouragement from that model, so do you really think they'll actually plan the live team's budget around the cash shop?
TF2 is basically free, the game is easier to run and the item shop is well designed and suitable for the F2P market. Same with most Nexon games.
I haven't played Aion but maybe the losses were due to the game being poorly designed? Just from word of mouth though, it was due to them having to salvage the game, meaning it was already doing poorly with the P2P model. Can't really salvage a bad game with a cash shop. That's just sticking a bandaid on a pimple. The cash shop for Aion may not have been designed well and not appeal to F2P newcomers. The article did say that items were "scaled back" during the dip. Too many reasons not to rule out. F2P doesn't mean automatic success, and of course it won't work for every game. That doesn't mean there's no potential in it.
"Year over year sales from 2011 compared to 2010 saw a similar drop in revenue by 7%, operating income by 24%, and income by 21%, due to what NCSoft refers to as a weakened user base, and an expansion in research and development."
Understandable due to competition and the fact that they're pouring their resources into Blade and Souls and GW2.
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