Massively indulges in industry favorite pastime: nerd raging.
So, NCsoft, how does it feel to absolutely lie through your teeth to players and staff about Tabula Rasa?
You know, sometimes I wonder if some of the people who get access to posting things on the Intarwebs actually have, you know, held positions of any responsibility. Ever. I mean – come on. What did the author expect to happen?
HARD-HITTIN’ GAME JOURNALIST: So, NCsoft, you just laid off a dozen people, cancelled projects, and we’ve read in the Korean media that the entire future of your office may be in danger. Any comment?
PR FLACK: …You know, I never thought of it that way. You’re right. Crap. We’re doomed! Probably going to cancel our remaining games too, so stop sending us money. Damn. I’m updating my LinkedIn right now. Excuse me, it’s TEQUILA O’CLOCK. (falls under desk)
HHGJ: (shouts under desk) Is this going to affect Tabula Rasa’s patch schedule?
Of course Tabula Rasa’s future was in doubt. ‘Doubt’ being the key phrase. If it was ‘assured to be cancelled’ instead of ‘doubt’, NCsoft would have laid everyone off instead of, you know, paying them to work. Instead, the team was given a chance to turn grim subscriber numbers around. It didn’t happen, and the project was cancelled.
Note other key phrases: “grim subscriber numbers turned around” and “did not happen”. This decision wasn’t taken by NCsoft so much as dictated to it by the market. NCsoft’s subscriber numbers for Tabula Rasa were *extremely low* (Most estimates placed it at 30,000) which, while it might sustain a skeletal development team and a token server (as SOE has done for titles in its stable), has no hope of recouping its huge development cost. Generally, when that happens? Heads roll.
MMOs are not charities. Companies are not obligated out of duty to keep a game running for you and your 12 closest friends if no one else is playing it. Yes, it sucks that you can’t play it any more. Guess what: it sucks a little more that everyone working on it lost their jobs. And that has a little more meaning to me than nerd ragings that deny common sense market realities.
(1:22p CST edit) And just because I can, another point: if gaming media is going to put on their robe and wizard hat and LARP at being HARD HITTIN’ GAME JOURNALISTS, maybe they should, you know, try to find things out instead of lapping at the milk dish of public relations press releases. Take this exchange currently on Massively:
From our perspective, from the readers of Massively we just feel like there is a little bit of confusion. We spoke with Mr. Reid just two months ago, and the headline we used was ‘Tabula Rasa is Triple-A and here to stay‘. It just seems like it has been a quick turnaround in two months from ‘we have every confidence in this game going forward’ to ‘we have to shut the game down.’ Has something happened in the last two months that prompted this?
Mr. Swofford: My reaction is that definitely at the time we thought we had something good going on … we had the Operation Immortality promotion going, things were looking good, the team was working on the product. As David said, we considered it a Triple-A level product for the company. Things do change. I think he also said, and I’ll reiterate, that we’re constantly looking at projects. It’s not like you have them out there and you let them go for a while, we’re constantly monitoring them and weighing them against the success that they’re having against the current market.
I think things changed quite a bit since when you did that interview.
Thank you for clarifying that – it’s good to be able to get that explained, there was definitely a sense of confusion on the site.
Well, gee. Let me boil that down into its operant parts:
Hey, your guys told us a couple months ago everything was hunky dory and nothing was wrong. Now you cancelled the game and made us look like chumps. Dude. WTF?
This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative.
Oh. OK.
Thanks a lot, Woodward.
Is expecting investigative journalism of hobbyist bloggers too much to ask? Maybe, although I have to wonder how much “investigative journalism” it would have taken for someone to ask how long NCsoft could continue to support a $50 million dollar game that had about the same number of subscribers as a game that was developed using some string and spare copier paper down the hall.
But for crying out loud, if you’re going to just reprint press releases, don’t whine about how life is unfair when those press releases turn around and bite you on the ass when they become “inoperative”.
#1 by hellfire on December 2nd, 2008
The million dollar question is who’s heads and how far will the roll?
It’s true for all MMOs, I’m sure, but TR really seems to have abandoned what it set out to do waaaaaaaaaaay back when. The first time I read about the glyph mechanic (which I thought was going to be a primary focus of gameplay) I thought to myself, “SELF! That sounds great! You should look out for this game in the future!”
What was delivered bore little resemblance to the semi-PR before beta. I would have liked to play THAT game.
While no ONE factor can be the death knell of a project I can’t help but believe that eschewing the original and reasonably creative design goals had a major impact.
#2 by Vargen on December 2nd, 2008
I can’t help but wonder if TR was canceled more for sociocultural reasons than for economic ones. The game cost a lot to develop, yes. But that money is already gone. Their subscriber numbers should be enough for a modest-but-steady income stream that brings in more money than they spend maintaining it.
But a lot of money was spent to develop it. That’s embarrassing, especially to a big company like NCSoft.
There’s also the distinct likelihood that they can’t write off the development costs as a loss if the game is still running…
#3 by mandrill on December 2nd, 2008
I’m sure that if they’re that bothered about it (and know anything about how the interweb does things) the raging nerds can DL a pirate version of the server and set one up for them and their 12 mates. It’ll be pretty empty though.
#4 by Jeremy T on December 2nd, 2008
NCSoft must have known – or at least strongly suspected – that TR was on the chopping block when they issued those reassuring PR statements. How could they not? With subs that low, it’s amazing the game limped along as long as it did.
The confusing thing to me is that the Massively blogger seems to think witholding that information was somehow an affront to the gaming community. Really? The 3 months notice they eventually gave wasn’t enough for you? What difference would the extra month and a half have made?
The fact is, this is what PR departments *do* – they selectively present facts in the best possible light, and they sure as hell don’t talk about the bad things. Just as with Mythic and WAR (you don’t see them out there talking about how *SUPER AWESOME* it is that they’re merging servers), NCSoft had no obligation (or any reason) to say anything bad about TR until plans were finalized.
The article only gets weirder from there, though, as the Massively blogger tries to make a case for keeping around unprofitable games. Seriously, what universe does he live in? TR was supposed to be a AAA push into the North American market, and it outright failed miserably; keeping it around on life support would only be a memorial to the scope of its failure.
#5 by hkedi on December 2nd, 2008
I’m pretty sure that they killed the game due to internal politics rather than over losing money for the following reasons.
I did return to TR about a month before the cancellation, and people were noticing a slow but steady stream of people returning to the game. The population seemed to have stabilized, often with players starting clone character to re-do content. A server merge or two was probably warranted, but there were easily enough people on my less-populated server to make the game lag seriously server-side when a special even was happening. As vargen said, there was a modest but steady revenue stream there.
Second, they announced cancellation about a month before a major content patch. To use WoW as a yardstick, I would say it would be equivalent to closing down WoW a month before AQ went live. I really didn’t make much sense to announce closure before the content release and kill any possible new subscriptions rather than look at the numbers a month after the new content came out and make the decision after bringing in more players.
Third, It’s been about a year since TR came out. Perhaps there were contractual restrictions to axing the game that have now expired allowing Korea to have a free hand and they just wanted to kill the game off. Especially since RG blew $20-30 million dollars on his little spaceflight junket.
Finally, the “severance package” that NCsoft gave to current TR players seemed really generous, but a bunch of the gifts seemed like an attempt to steer members into playing their up-and-coming new title Aion.
Wether it was for taxes, to steer players to their new title, reduce their development footprint in America, or other reason, I think their complete axing of TR was a mistake in the long term. With their second MMOG cancellation, they are getting a reputation for killing off titles that don’t instantly make a huge impact. Do you really want to try one of their titles if you think there is a good chance (based on the company’s history) that it will be killed off within the year it’s released?
#6 by Naladini on December 2nd, 2008
Good point Vargren. If you treat a game’s original development as a sunk cost, and have the ability to run lean and keep something at break-even or better moving forward, which path do you think will serve an organization better over time? Keeping a weak game around, knowing that 30k fans still enjoy it? Or shutting it down as “unsuccessful” and turning away those who have probably recently paid full price retail to get a copy and still want to play?
I agree that its a business and not a charity, but there’s some opportunity in generating good will with 30k people for a title that’s already “done”.
#7 by Dave on December 2nd, 2008
So what happens when the first person who purchased the game for 49.95 or whatever it was decided to sue to get their money back? They now have a product that they have purchased a license for that they cannot use.
#8 by Scott Jennings on December 2nd, 2008
The lawyer they hire points out the place on the box where it says the developer reserves the right to close the service at any time with no notice.
#9 by Dave on December 2nd, 2008
Hopefully that place is on the outside of the box, not the inside where it is unreadable, since no store will take software returns once a box is opened. Some lawyer out there could make an interesting case that since the EULA is on the inside and was not reviewable before making the contract, provisions like that are unenforceable.
#10 by Yeebo on December 2nd, 2008
This makes me wonder exactly how the SOE model differs from that of NCsoft. Obviously everything that they can add to the station pass adds value to it, and also presents an opportunity for modest software sales when station pass subscribers decide to try a new products that are under the umbrella.
However, SOE also seems much more open to keeping games going that are barely breaking even in general. I’m sure that whatever independent sub revenues EQOA and MXO have currently are mainly going into the salaries of the two or three staff that administer each of those games. And SOE maintains servers for their two EQ themed PS2 action RPGs, even though they generate no revenue apart from sales (which surely must have tapered off years ago).
NCsoft, on the other hand, seems to have little interest in maintaining any game that has less than 100K subs, Dungeon Runners excepted. They have also considered and apparently abandoned the idea of a “one sub for all” plan. With TR and AA in the family they could have competed strongly with the station pass. But NCsoft seems to have little interest in it, for whatever reason.
NCsoft and SOE seem to be on opposite ends of some spectrum. However, I honestly couldn’t tell you what parameter space they are separated in. It may be merely a cultural difference between the two corporations, but I’d imagine there is more to it than that. Tax laws in Korea vs. Japan?
#11 by Nick Stinger on December 2nd, 2008
I think the difference between NCSoft and SOE is John Smedley.
#12 by Scott Jennings on December 2nd, 2008
It is on the box cover for that very reason.
#13 by Dave on December 2nd, 2008
Oh, is it?
#14 by dartwick on December 2nd, 2008
Theres no harm in calling a liar a “liar”.
Even if the lie was incredibly obvious and you were a total fool for believing it.
#15 by DrewC on December 2nd, 2008
First off, it’s highly unlikely that NCSoft needs a tax write off this year, and even if they did, I find it pretty unlikely that operating servers at a small operational profit would prevent them from writing off the giant initial investment. It’s most certainly the case that if they actually have 30,000 subscribers they could keep the game limping along for a profit, but there are potential hidden costs there.
First, given the degree to which they’re… restructuring their North American operations, there’s a fair chance that they’d have to spend a non-trivial amount of money to get the servers and live team set up in a new location. I don’t know if that is the case, but it’s certainly a strong possibility. It’s also quite possible that the server hardware/architecture was economical for a 100,000 person game, but crippling for a 30,000 person game. That’s a fixable problem, but it costs money to fix it.
The biggest cost, however, is opportunity. With 30,000 subscribers what percentage of profit is TR going to turn? I don’t know, but my guess is that 10% would be the high end (I suspect a number like 4% or 5% is more realistic). The question is: if NCSoft spends the couple million it will cost to keep TR operational for that period somewhere else, will they get a better return on their investment? With global credit markets as tight as they are, and NCSoft in the midst of a major restructuring, it’s easy to imagine that they have a better place to invest that money.
#16 by Chas on December 2nd, 2008
Yeebo, this is just guessing, but there are several factors in determining profitability of low-population servers.
–Size of the sustained development is just one frequently mentioned here… sure, you can shrink to a skeleton crew if your code is hardy and running well, but if your game is showing stress fractures and will need an investment to even sustain its current population, you’ve got problems. U
–underlying tech might also play a factor. TR has a kind of pseudo-shooter feel that’s far less tolerant to issues like what the client displays than your typical system, meaning more frequent positional updates are needed, meaning more of the subscription $$ going to bandwidth costs.
–contractual obligations are often a big one. These companies don’t operate in a vaccuum- there are partnerships and various service providers. Many of these may have been minimum-set-fees that could only be escaped by the total termination of the service…
–finally, there’s also a gamble that when you lose the player, you might just be gaining the player elsewhere instead. They may bet that a good share of the typical TR’er will use the subscription $$ for another NCSoft game instead.
#17 by Calandryll on December 2nd, 2008
Calling it a lie or calling Dave a liar is silly. Less than a month before AC2 was shut down, the decision hadn’t been made yet. We kind of new it was coming, but there was a team tasked with working on ideas to keep it running. I know this for a fact because I was on that team. If someone had asked our PR person if AC2 was going to be shutdown, even two weeks before we made the announcement, he would have said no and he wouldn’t have been lying. We made the final decision and made the announcement less than a week apart.
Mostly though, I see nothing false about what Dave wrote. He said the earlier layoffs didn’t impact TR (true), that Operation Immortality was in full swing (true), and that the team was dedicated (very true) and still working on the game (true).
Where is the lie again?
Companies can’t talk about decisions that *might* get made in cases like this. If he said “we’re considering shutting down TR” that would have torpedoed any chance the team had of recovering it. It would have been flat out stupid to say that. And expecting them to do anything else is unfair and just setting yourself up for disappointment.
#18 by J. on December 2nd, 2008
“Their subscriber numbers should be enough for a modest-but-steady income stream that brings in more money than they spend maintaining it.”
Should assumes that was the case.
#19 by D-0ne on December 2nd, 2008
Inclusion has its price.
#20 by UnSub on December 3rd, 2008
Nerd rage generally only kicks in after the fact; before then, everything is pretty much unicorns and starbeams. Look at WAR: lots of luv and omg and it’ll be so awesome before launch, but it didn’t take long for the worm to turn. Same with Darkfall… if / when it eventually launches.
Also, from memory, TR was giving NCsoft negative royalties, meaning they had to pay out more money to licensees than they were getting in return from player subs. TR cost a bomb to develop, a bomb to run and was a bomb of a product.
However, as a question: which is sadder? An unsuccessful MMO that is quickly killed (TR), or a borderline successful MMO that is kept in zombie status and not a particularly large player base (SOE’s stable, particularly MxO)?
Finally – it really depends on who at Massively is writing the article as to if the PR guy gets a blowjob or not.
#21 by Rubylite on December 3rd, 2008
Maybe your next post will be about AIDS in Africa or the vast starving populations throughout the world which are vastly more important than some developers losing their jobs.
It’s all relative, you don’t have the magic truth wand.
Consumers should not be expected to get heart broken about what the devs are gunna do after they lost their jobs. It does not relate to them at all.
#22 by faefrost on December 5th, 2008
Keep in mind with those extremely low numbers games that SOE operates. Most of them they picked up at fire sale prices, Such as Vanguard and matrix Online. SOE didn’t foot the development costs. That loss got recorded elsewhere. This makes it very easy to keep the game going at a minimal profit.
the weird thing is of TR had killed NCSoft or AC2 had pushed Turbine into bankruptcy, both games probably would have still been up and running in some form today. When a MMO closes it is normally that it is a cost that exceeds that which the developer/producer/owner wishes to bear.
#23 by Timbo on December 8th, 2008
Lemme see if I got this straight…
The game cost about $50M to create, and they currently have 30,000 players. Just for grins, let’s say for each subber currently playing, FIVE other people bought the game at the full $50 each, but lost interest & stopped playing.
So that’s 180,000 boxes at $50 each or $9m in box revenue, trying to offset $50m in dev costs. If TR charges industry standard rate of $15 per month, the small subscription base would only generate $5.4m per year in revenue, not profits.
So even if they had ZERO operating costs, the sub revenue would need over 7 1/2 years just for the project to break even. If it was *your personal* money at stake, you’d pull the plug too.
#24 by L. on December 8th, 2008
I did a search on the page and was amazed to see that in neither the OP nor the responses was the name “Garriott” mentioned. Talk about ignoring the elephant in the room. Who’s responsible? Who accepted all that money from investors and who flew into space with it?
And I don’t feel too sorry for Swofford. When the Korea Times reported the whole truth about the “financial disaster” in Feb 2008 the PR department at NcSoft Austin called the paper and reporter quite a few unkind names, and insinuated that the reporter was dishonest and incompetent. The gaming community did their share of jeering at the reporter at Swofford’s example.
Maybe you don’t have the answers because you’ve got blinders on.