http://steamcharts.com/app/375230#48h It's not looking good only ever peeking at 2000 players on launch day. Bloody hell MWO does better then this.
Well they didn't go crazy marketing wise, I'm assuming they'd like to take their time to add a couple feature before trying to advertise. They look like they want to go a bit under the radar. They had an obligation toward Bandai Namco, so the publisher could start selling games in stores. They fullfilled that obligation. Now they focus on making it the most balanced and polished possible before going further. That way they might squeeze in a bit extra cash just to keep things flowing until they are done. I'd rather not have them make a big boom sales right now if it is to end up with thousands people asking for refunds and making negative reviews with a strong media coverage demolishing the game. As of now, buying just some extra time for maybe, 1-3 months and than starting the agressive marketing plan would seem more adequate to me. Even if I was the publisher of this game. Just get back that initial investment, cover your charges, complete the game, than bam, now you try to go for the sales number.
The thing is First impressions matter, Second impressions even more so and EC burned both of tem with the steam launch and this launch. Those reviews are going to stick around forever and unless the white knight brigade fluffs the numbers for a third time ( witch speaks volumes about the game) no one will care about EC in the future.
I wish I could maintain your optimism. However that is an extremely poor way to do business. I mean; launch bad and hope you can make up for it later? Over; wait a bit longer make make sure the launch is good? The launch is the point when everyone does reviews, that's the crux, it should be the focus on where to shine, but the mentality you've inferred is that their goal was to make that crux the time to fall flat on their face and then try and pick themselves back up after because they had to bend the knee to a developer due to contract... Well sounds like some one should not have been making contracts they could not fulfill... Nathan? Like a god damn child learning to walk... BE should have stayed making mobile games.
The game project was/is pretty ambitious by itself so yeah, they might have bitten more than they could chew, time will tell. Should they have waited to release? Well if they had the possibility to do so, yeah, but they didn't. The exact reasons why they happened to not have the option of delaying I wouldn't know, even from the publisher's standpoint I agree it seems it would've been worth it to wait. The first impressions only count for those that actually have even heard about/seen/played the game. If initial numbers aren't quite high, it can also mean that not many people actually had a first impression. As long as the numbers start going up from launch onward, we are ok. I am personally more interested to see in the next three months how this will evolve. If we look at MWO, it went down from its release, so it might actually have made a lot of marketing for a game that was ... average (I do not know haven't played the game), and ended up being seen and played by too many people that just quit. Not saying I'm optimistic, just saying that from on and the months to come do matter more than the ones we've already passed imho. The last month has seen some good increase, we'll see where fall and winter brings us. I have no idea just how succesful the mechwarrior franchise generally is vs wh40k either, Last mechwarrior and mechcommander game I played was 10 years ago. No idea if they have a dedicated fanbase.
It depends really, on if you're going for extreme profitability, or just sustainability. MMOs (of which this game maintains that status debatably) seek sustainability first and foremost. So, for this game to be sustainable, it must have: -Enough players to keep matchmaking working smoothly, and to keep the factions properly balanced population-wise against each other. -Enough paying players to keep the lights on. Having 2700 concurrent players isn't bad in those regards. Planetside 2 has around 3500 concurrent players in a 24 hour period, so we still haven't hit that mark yet. Now, note, that this is not total pool of owners, that's just how many people play in a day. In reality, you want about 30,000 owners, who play intermittently, and fork over some cash once in a while. Now, paying for a cosmetic item here and there gives an OK cashflow, but really, you wanna target the Whales (obsessive players with too much money). That's where the factions come in. They'll probably go for $10-20. If they can get a new faction every 6 months, that'd be decent. So, I don't see the numbers burying the game here. It's not gonna hugely popular, but it'll more than likely keep us playing and keep the devs paying their mortgages. They already have the bones in place for it to go F2P, which would happen if the cash flow drops, but at that point the game would also be in a more polished state, so if they add a bit of marketing at that point, it'd be another big boost. So no, the sky ain't falling here.
I see what you mean but like i said the flurry of negative review will be there to greet any new comer. As for battletech and MWO: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webeharebrained/battletech/description Almost 2.8 million dollars in just over a month.
First thing I have to say is that there have been like 5 trailers. They've marketed the game quite a bit, especially since all they need is the IP to sell copies across the globe.
Well. People are disliking the game for a reason. It's not like 11 year old Warcraft faboys show up and hating the game without any relevant opinion. Imagine you would start (again) today. Without any clues about this game. You will find yourself dying over and over and over again. The fact that this game is very laggy in its current state and the netcode is worse than anything else will do the rest. Also... you are able to buy weapons which give you a fairly amount of advantage with real money. This is called "Pay to Win" in a game which is buy to play. That's a big "no no". Negative reviews shouldn't be a big surprise. This game shouldn't be released yet. Big mistake. Another 6-12 months would have done the trick. Why is every single game with the Warhammer40k licence this kind of "meh" in the first place? This franchise has so much potential. It's making me really sad. Tears for the tear god.
