Weird Posted July 19, 2008 Report Share Posted July 19, 2008 Is it? One time payment means the company has created a game, sell it, (hopefully) makes a profit on it and starts to produce the next game to repeat the cycle. For online games, the development cycle is continuous as is the revenue stream. Computer game companies often continue development (patches, support) even if they aren't charging monthly. Yes, but an increase of x million units sold in one of the markets isn't the same as the same number of units sold in the other market. Getting a 10% increase in a large market that is already fully established is much harder than getting a 10% increase in a small market that is still evolving. Sanuk! The point is one is going up at an extremely fast rate while the other is stagnant or could even be seen as going down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted July 20, 2008 Report Share Posted July 20, 2008 Hi, "Computer game companies often continue development (patches, support) even if they aren't charging monthly." You can't honestly consider patching the same thing as WoW development. They are not even remotely in the same ball park. "The point is one is going up at an extremely fast rate while the other is stagnant or could even be seen as going down." Care to provide some links with figures that proof this? Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weird Posted July 20, 2008 Report Share Posted July 20, 2008 Hi, "Computer game companies often continue development (patches, support) even if they aren't charging monthly." You can't honestly consider patching the same thing as WoW development. They are not even remotely in the same ball park. "The point is one is going up at an extremely fast rate while the other is stagnant or could even be seen as going down." Care to provide some links with figures that proof this? Sanuk! Your links show the older offline games hit much higher numbers then they do now. Wow development? You mean the expansions they sell in a new box? (As if it were a new game) Are you honestly going to compare an expansion as the same as a new game in terms of development? They get away with developing less(in terms of developing a new product), and yet still charging box price for the expansion. Ontop of that, to play the new expansion you have to buy the original game and each expansion before it(If you don't already own them). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted July 21, 2008 Report Share Posted July 21, 2008 Hi, "Your links show the older offline games hit much higher numbers then they do now." My links don't show anything on the online market and I have yet to see any from you that show that the offline market is stagnant while the online one is growing. Single games not reaching the same numbers sold as a few years ago does not necessarily mean the offline market is stagnant. So, could you please show me some links that support your claim? "(As if it were a new game)" So, are you now saying that WoW and it's expansions are different games? Shouldn't that mean that I can use franchise numbers? And once again, you are referring to the same game (WoW) to make a point about the whole genre. Is it really that hard to consider that WoW may be the exception rather than the rule? Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weird Posted July 21, 2008 Report Share Posted July 21, 2008 My links don't show anything on the online market and I have yet to see any from you that show that the offline market is stagnant while the online one is growing. Single games not reaching the same numbers sold as a few years ago does not necessarily mean the offline market is stagnant. Your links show that offline games aren't reaching the same numbers they did 10 years ago. Not just a few years ago. So, are you now saying that WoW and it's expansions are different games? Shouldn't that mean that I can use franchise numbers? No, it's not the same. It's pretty easy to see. Mario 2 does not require you to buy Mario 1. WoW Burning Crusade does require you to buy the original. Feel free to group together any offline or non-subscription games that require you to buy every preceeding version of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted July 21, 2008 Report Share Posted July 21, 2008 Hi, "Your links show that offline games aren't reaching the same numbers they did 10 years ago. Not just a few years ago." So, how does that show anything about your claims? Sales of individual games does not mean the market as a whole isn't reaching the same numbers. Weird, you are skirting around the issue. Show me some links to back up your claims and we can continue this, but otherwise what's the point? I see you conveniently left out a reply to this : "Is it really that hard to consider that WoW may be the exception rather than the rule?" "No, it's not the same. It's pretty easy to see." I do not think it is that easily cut. Without the expansion packs would WoW have really reached 10M for instance? BTW, found another list of best selling games http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50939 That is a list of best selling PC games for 2007, WoW Burning Crusade tops that with 2.25M. In comparison here are some numbers for console games in 2007 (Source): Halo 3 - 4.82M Wii Play - 4.12M Call of Duty 4 - 3.04M Guitar Hero III - 2.72M Super Mario Galaxy - 2.52M Pokemon Diamond - 2.48M Madden NFL 08 - 1.90M Guitar Hero 2 - 1.89M Assassin's Creed - 1.87M Mario Party 8 - 1.82M Interesting in the link is also the mention that "PC Games [are] 14% of 2007 Retail Games Sales" Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weird Posted July 21, 2008 Report Share Posted July 21, 2008 You confuse the topic of subscriptions vs non-subscriptions with console vs pc. xbox has an online service called xbox live. That service has 12 million subscribers. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/14/AR2008071401999.html?hpid=moreheadlines As for trends of online gaming: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6145712.html http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12450 http://software.tekrati.com/research/9958/ If you'd like to compare how many people play online games vs offline only: "From the total U.S. gaming population, 44% of them claim that they play games online, compared to 42% in 2005 and 19% in 2000 (ESA, 2005; 2006)." http://abryzak.org/The%20Growth%20of%20the%20Computer%20and%20Video%20Game%20Industry.pdf You can throw up as many numbers as you want, but if you don't understand them, or take them in the correct context, they become meaningless. So, how does that show anything about your claims? Sales of individual games does not mean the market as a whole isn't reaching the same numbers. If you believed this then you would stop asking me to find games with purchases over arbitrary numbers since they aren't indictive of the market as a whole. I do not think it is that easily cut. Without the expansion packs would WoW have really reached 10M for instance? It doesn't matter. If you want to play the expansion, you buy the original, hence it's different. If you can't see that then Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted July 21, 2008 Report Share Posted July 21, 2008 Hi, "You confuse the topic of subscriptions vs non-subscriptions with console vs pc." Wasn't all of this started with online gaming vs offline gaming and you claiming that the future of gaming would be online gaming, and more specifically subscription based online gaming? As such, consoles are very much a part of the equation as they provide both online and offline gaming, just like PCs. "As for trends of online gaming:" Yes, they are in an upward slope. Reading closely though a lot of the upward slope can be attributed to larger internet penetration (esp. in China) and the popularity of 1 game (WoW). "From the total U.S. gaming population, 44% of them claim that they play games online, compared to 42% in 2005 and 19% in 2000 (ESA, 2005; 2006)." Interesting is that that same article also claims that "The ESA (2006) statistics show that MMOGâ??s only make up 7.0% of the games that are played online by U.S. households." So, while online gaming may be on the rise, *paid* online gaming is apparently still a very small part of this. I thought this comment was rather interesting as well: "Despite the tremendous rise in revenue and staff, only 8 new online game companies were formed in 2006, compared to 24 in 2005." "If you believed this then you would stop asking me to find games with purchases over arbitrary numbers since they aren't indictive of the market as a whole." Because you brought WoW's 10M subscribers forward as an argument in your favor. I was just showing you that 10M isn't that big a number in the gaming world. "If you want to play the expansion, you buy the original, hence it's different." Ok, I'll accept that dev costs for exp packs are cheaper than dev costs of a totally new game. It would still be very interesting to find out how much of the subscription fees are actually profit. Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weird Posted July 27, 2008 Report Share Posted July 27, 2008 "As such, consoles are very much a part of the equation as they provide both online and offline gaming, just like PCs." EXACTLY my point. So you can't just assume that all console games are offline and don't use subscriptions. Which you have done by assuming that all xbox games are 100% offline. You keep putting up numbers that you don't understand, then asking me to put up numbers which you won't take in the correct context anyway. Let me give you an example: "Interesting is that that same article also claims that "The ESA (2006) statistics show that MMOGâ??s only make up 7.0% of the games that are played online by U.S. households."" That number only represents MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAMES. Not all online games. Why don't you use the statistic right below it instead of trying to skew the numbers?: "From the total U.S. gaming population, 44% of them claim that they play games online, compared to 42% in 2005 and 19% in 2000 (ESA, 2005; 2006)" Or how about this? "I thought this comment was rather interesting as well: "Despite the tremendous rise in revenue and staff, only 8 new online game companies were formed in 2006, compared to 24 in 2005."" This was referring to online game companies in CHINA. Don't take quotes out of context to misinform other people who might read this thread. Thanks. "Because you brought WoW's 10M subscribers forward as an argument in your favor. I was just showing you that 10M isn't that big a number in the gaming world." Again, apples and oranges. 10M subscribers is different from 10M games sold. 10M subscribers is 10M games sold + more. If you believe that Blizzard is making even 1c more from subscriptions then you'll agree it isn't an even comparison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted July 28, 2008 Report Share Posted July 28, 2008 Hi, "Which you have done by assuming that all xbox games are 100% offline." There is no fee for online games on the Xbox. As far as I know, you pay a fee for accessing the Xbox network, which is more than just online gaming. "That number only represents MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAMES. Not all online games." Right, which shows that while there is a large market for online gaming, only a small percentage of those playing online play games that they have to pay a monthly subscription for. "This was referring to online game companies in CHINA. Don't take quotes out of context to misinform other people who might read this thread. Thanks." I'd say that since we are discussing the future of online gaming a statement that the number of new online companies forming in China is dropping is certainly relevant. Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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