No, it says they have lower priority. I mean they are still clearly working on maps. It’s just not the number 1 priority.
But the problem is that since the number of maps is so limited, that the game has become stale… Which is going to ultimately have a major impact on player retention, which will ultimately result in a loss of MC sales.
Hey i want more maps. EVERYONE wants more maps, even when there are 20 or 40 or 100. Give us more maps!
Nevertheless the rate of map production seems pretty normal. WoT didn’t die because limited maps and only 1 game mode (and overall less interesting gameplay!). In fact it flourished. So I am not sure this is genuinely a big problem for them.
On the contrary, I’m pointing out the fact that their lack of foresight is going to cause them to EARN LESS MONEY.
Maybe, but probably not. As an industry outsider, I can only go by what the success stories are doing, and they are doing very similar things in terms of pricing and content.
While things like maps may not directly result in people throwing money at the game, they contribute to a more engaging player experience… and more engaged players throw more money at your game.
I very much agree, there is a balance to be struck.
Yes, this is what’s started the most recent shitstorm in PGI’s forums (causing them to resort to draconian measures, like banning people for saying things about them outside of PGI’s forums).
We have only one pretty suspect guy’s word that that happened. Though even if it did I don’t care in the slightest about PGI or any other companies’ forum moderation policies. They can permaban shit disturbers, why not? It’s their forum. It’s not like I visit it myself more than once in a blue moon.
As you can see from that post from Niko above, PGI has repeatedly tried to explain away their failures to produce important content and features for MWO due to a lack of development resources… and yet, now they are devoting resources to a whole new game (which, frankly, is doomed to failure).
I’ll agree on the doomed to failure part but it’s clear they have a new source of funding specifically for this new game. They have said that all MWO profits get folded back into MWO development and operating costs, which only makes good accounting and legal sense, esp. since MWO was partly crowdfunded. Maybe they are lying but they’d be really dumb to do it otherwise.
They say that it won’t pull resources from MWO, but this is clearly false. Even when you look at Russ Bullock’s own statements, this is clearly false… He believes that if an engineer completes a task for MWO, and then you move him to AUTE, that MWO hasn’t lost any development resources (he actually said EXACTLY that). But anyone with a brain realizes that this is clearly false, since normally that engineer would then go on to do some other task for MWO, which will now go undone.
No Russ is correct actually… As long as the money & resources are being correctly apportioned and time properly tracked. MWO staffing and resources are going to depend on MWO’s income, I imagine that will vary as the months go on.
Generally though, yeah, I don’t really see what this new game could possibly offer, and I think it will tank pretty hard. Hopefully PGI will survive it and have the same kind of “come to jesus” moment CCP had after the Incarna/White Wolf debacle.
