… but he wasn’t correct for the time period covered by the quote. The 2009 THQ execs would have been thinking about Warhammer Online and Age of Conan, not Everquest.
I love that the THQ execs were literally saying the same statements that industry observers/gamers (on these boards and elsewhere) were saying sarcastically.
RickH
2997
“The biggest MMO before WoW was Everquest with what, 300,000 subscribers?” <-- This is still correct.
Conan and WAR were disastrous, first because their budgets demanded a hell of a lot more sales than they got, and second because their subscriber numbers cratered after the launch window. I don’t think even THQ execs were thinking, “Man, if we can spend $80 in marketing per sale, plus dev costs, and not retain any subscribers, we’ll be rolling in it!”
LMN8R
2999
Right - it doesn’t matter that some other MMOs managed to get higher numbers than Everquest, they’re still the tiny minority of exceptions, far from the norm. At the time, Everquest was still one of the only MMOs to get a successful and steady userbase that made money for the developer/publisher.
I think we can all at least agree that some of the THQ execs had unrealistic expectations about wading into the MMO market. Minor quibbling over EQ’s status as a success, there’s no doubt that most of us could’ve easily predicted the outcome of THQ’s attempt at a MMO.
In fact, I guess I have to give credit to them for just cutting their losses and killing it as opposed to stubbornly driving on and sinking more money into the pit.
TurinTur
3001
I don’t think you are counting Asian MMOs.
It was also interesting the tidbit about how they used the Bankruptcy, I had no idea that was what really happened, they actually had a plan to being sold privately and still maintain unity as a game company, they had the buyer, but they tried to use what I suppose it was a legal trick to ease the deal (declaring Bankruptcy just before) and in the end that destroyed them, as then they were at hands of a Bankruptcy judge and this denied the deal and it was the judge the one who determined it had to be sold piece by piece, destroying then the possibility of maintaining the group together. Maybe THQ would still exist if it wasn’t by that judge.
LMN8R
3002
Asian MMOs don’t have every user paying a subscription fee, which is a very relevant detail when you’re talking about a publisher hoping to get 1 million subscribers paying a subscription fee.
I think their actual line of thought was, “If you’re playing roulette to save the company, you might as well put it all on one number.”
Good journalism or bad from Eurogamer? You decide.
Why You Might Not Want to Preorder The Order: 1886.
I watched that this morning and didn’t know exactly what to make of it either. It’s definitely not the usual approach to previews.
jsnell
3008
I’d like to hear someone make a case for “bad”, because it seems like a pretty solid approach to me.
Well this is sort of a straw man by default, but I’d imagine the complaint against it is that it’s not “fair” to criticize an unfinished game, and to outright say “you might not want to preorder this” is in any situation a lot more direct than most previews—or even reviews—get about making an actual purchasing decision.
I think it’s pretty reasonable, especially since all they’re saying is “Hey, wait and see”, but this kind of approach is unusual enough it might ruffle some feathers, both with publishers and the excitable fan base. Being a PS4 exclusive will only fan the flames if this becomes part of the console war narrative.
Bateau
3010
It sounded like someone who’s finally had enough but wasn’t allowed or didn’t want to say exactly what he thought. That jab at David Cage (hope I spelled that correctly, I’m not familiar with the guy or his games beyond what I glmpsed over in some random posts on various forums) was pretty telling too.
magnet
3011
That might have been the case back in the day when you couldn’t buy unfinished games. But now you can.
Anything that’s up for sale is also up for criticism.
RickH
3012
It creates a negative context for viewing the game before the reader has read beyond the headline. Headlines are frequently used to send a message about the article to influence the reader’s desire to read it (or not). This particular headline says: “PSSST – here’s some bad shit about The Order.”
Unless there’s a companion story that makes the case for why we would like to pre-order.
Telefrog
3013
I guess my question would be why single out The Order? Beyond the general concept that no one should preorder any game unless they’re prepared for the consequences, is Eurogamer going to do this for every game they preview?
I could’ve easily made a case for not preodering any Ubisoft online-only game even before the recent stumbles. Where was this kind of video for The Crew? There were beta access periods that showed people a lot of server issues. I watched a number of them. Eurogamer didn’t make one and plop it on their page with a “you might not want to preorder this” headline. How about a don’t preorder warning video for Battlefield: Hardline? Evolve?
Conversely, what about “You Should Totally Preorder This!” articles?
It creates a negative context for viewing the game before the reader has read beyond the headline.
Does it inaccurately sum up the story? Because that’s the point of a headline.
