|
|
| Author |
Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 0 post(s) |
Vell0cet
OSG Planetary Operations
Covert Intervention
3
   |
Posted - 2015.07.21 05:11:00 -
[1] - Quote
deezy dabest wrote:Ripley Riley wrote:deezy dabest wrote:Considering CCP is going to milk every single drop they can out of the players here on PS3 before moving I think Overwatch and many other "projects" will come first.
If people want CCP to port this game they need to STOP spending money. The accounting department makes all the real decisions. CCP is a business. They are motivated by profit. If Dust 514 suddenly becomes unprofitable at best they are going to leave it in it's current state of hotfixes and infrequent updates; what I have come to call "maintenance mode". At worst, they shut it down completely. If the players want Dust to get ported then Dust needs to remain profitable. Players need to purchase aurum. Simple right? Not quite. Many players wouldn't mind spending aurum if they knew where this game was going. So then we have a catch-22; players won't buy aurum without news of Dust 514's future, CCP won't discuss Dust's future unless the game remains profitable. Basic rule of business: Never throw a profitable model in the trash. As long as Dust + PS3 = profit it is not getting changed. If CCP wants to stay in the FPS game they will go to the customers. If CCP does not want to stay in the FPS game then everything will be dropped as soon as they are no longer profitable anyway. Until enough players have given up on this game or stopped spending money their hand will not be forced and they will coast along milking up a small profit attempting to recoup some of the insane startup costs which mean that Dust is most likely still very much negative.
This is clueless.
"Profitable" could mean they're generating $1 per year more than they're spending. It's close to meaningless without more information. I guarantee you that DUST isn't a money fountain for CCP (if it were there would be a lot more people on the team and we'd see marketing out there).
Here's the deal. DUST is basically an experiment for the next gen project. There are 2 key metrics that DUST has to get right: 1. New Player Retention Percent and 2. Average $ spent per retained player per year. When these numbers hit the sweet spot, CCP will dump as much money as needed to the x86 version.
Here's why. Let's say it costs $1 million in advertising to get 5 million players to download and try out the x86 DUST. If they have a retention rate of 15% and an average $ spend per player retained of $30 (some spend $1000+, most spend $0). That would produce $22.5 million, less the 1 mill advertising costs and development costs and you have a projected profit. If they can increase retention from 15% to 20% they would generate $30 million. If they can boost $ spend per retained player per year by a similar percent, you would see similar increases.
The point is, CCP doesn't care about the profit being generated by DUST right now. It's really insignificant. What they do care about is the metrics of player retention and average spend per player. These numbers will scale on a new platform. That's why they're experimenting so much with the business model (skins, 3x booster stacking, lockboxes, BPO's, APEX etc.) and adding things like the loadout progression tab, tweaking matchmaking, changing squad sizes, etc. We're the "small scale" laboratory for them to work out if it's worth the investment/risk/effort to port. Withholding money will reduce the key metrics they're using for their business analysis. I'm not saying you should spend money. You can do whatever the hell you want, but don't boycott spending money and think you're actually helping the game's chances at a port. That's moronic thinking.
Best PvE idea ever!
|
Vell0cet
OSG Planetary Operations
Covert Intervention
3
|
Posted - 2015.07.21 05:43:00 -
[2] - Quote
deezy dabest wrote:Vell0cet wrote:deezy dabest wrote:Ripley Riley wrote:deezy dabest wrote:Considering CCP is going to milk every single drop they can out of the players here on PS3 before moving I think Overwatch and many other "projects" will come first.
If people want CCP to port this game they need to STOP spending money. The accounting department makes all the real decisions. CCP is a business. They are motivated by profit. If Dust 514 suddenly becomes unprofitable at best they are going to leave it in it's current state of hotfixes and infrequent updates; what I have come to call "maintenance mode". At worst, they shut it down completely. If the players want Dust to get ported then Dust needs to remain profitable. Players need to purchase aurum. Simple right? Not quite. Many players wouldn't mind spending aurum if they knew where this game was going. So then we have a catch-22; players won't buy aurum without news of Dust 514's future, CCP won't discuss Dust's future unless the game remains profitable. Basic rule of business: Never throw a profitable model in the trash. As long as Dust + PS3 = profit it is not getting changed. If CCP wants to stay in the FPS game they will go to the customers. If CCP does not want to stay in the FPS game then everything will be dropped as soon as they are no longer profitable anyway. Until enough players have given up on this game or stopped spending money their hand will not be forced and they will coast along milking up a small profit attempting to recoup some of the insane startup costs which mean that Dust is most likely still very much negative. This is clueless. "Profitable" could mean they're generating $1 per year more than they're spending. It's close to meaningless without more information. I guarantee you that DUST isn't a money fountain for CCP (if it were there would be a lot more people on the team and we'd see marketing out there). Here's the deal. DUST is basically an experiment for the next gen project. There are 2 key metrics that DUST has to get right: 1. New Player Retention Percent and 2. Average $ spent per retained player per year. When these numbers hit the sweet spot, CCP will dump as much money as needed to the x86 version. Here's why. Let's say it costs $1 million in advertising to get 5 million players to download and try out the x86 DUST. If they have a retention rate of 15% and an average $ spend per player retained of $30 (some spend $1000+, most spend $0). That would produce $22.5 million, less the 1 mill advertising costs and development costs and you have a projected profit. If they can increase retention from 15% to 20% they would generate $30 million. If they can boost $ spend per retained player per year by a similar percent, you would see similar increases. The point is, CCP doesn't care about the profit being generated by DUST right now. It's really insignificant. What they do care about is the metrics of player retention and average spend per player. These numbers will scale on a new platform. That's why they're experimenting so much with the business model (skins, 3x booster stacking, lockboxes, etc.) and adding things like the loadout progression tab, tweaking matchmaking, changing squad sizes, etc. We're the "small scale" laboratory for them to work out if it's worth the investment/risk/effort to port. Withholding money will reduce the key metrics they're using for their business analysis. I'm not saying you should spend money. You can do whatever the hell you want, but don't boycott spending money and think you're actually helping the game's chances at a port. That's moronic thinking. You are correct on the fact that profitable could mean $1 more per year but the simple fact is Dust is most likely in a huge hole from its first launch which means that every $1 they can get before spending millions more they WILL. As far as your numbers go you are just basing on completely fictional numbers that simply put would not be chosen above hard proven numbers. As long as those hard proven numbers equal a positive there is no reason to blow millions of dollars and start all over in a market with more competition and more overhead. I hate to break it to you but $1 million in advertising will not even come close to a base of 5 million players. If you take a look at the all-time new player creation stats you will see that several million in advertising netted maybe 3 million players in the initial few months and that was including players from beta who were in on pure hype that fell over from Eve. Those 3 million players were out of nearly 80 million PS3s world wide, the PS4 has under 30 million units world wide. Basically if you are going to argue a point try not to do it with fake numbers that have absolutely zero groundwork in reality. I can promise you CCP is not looking at fictional numbers either.
Yes the numbers are complete fiction, but the relationship between player retention percentage and average spend per retained player holds up with any numbers. I was using fictional numbers just to illustrate the point, but the concept is valid. What's spent is spent and has no bearing on future investments by the way. If CCP can produce a game that retains a significant portion of players and those players they retain are willing to spend a decent amount of $ on average, then they're going to do it. They will beg/borrow/steal the cash to make it happen. Any company would be stupid not to, and any investor would be a fool to pass on that opportunity.
Best PvE idea ever!
|
Vell0cet
OSG Planetary Operations
Covert Intervention
3
|
Posted - 2015.07.21 06:23:00 -
[3] - Quote
deezy dabest wrote:...With that being said why would you throw out the couple hundred thousand on and off players we have right now in hopes that most of them would follow and in even more hopes that you will be able to buy your way into new customers who retain at the same rate in a far more competitive environment.
There is no logical reason for CCP to give up the PS3 while it is still pulling back in some of the money which it is still behind on just to go even more negative and start almost completely over again. The only way to break the cycle of PS3 being the best option is to show that it will no longer be profitable.
Because the market for the PS3 is shrinking and the market for the PS4/PC/whatever-the-hell is growing. Our numbers are probably so low that they're not a consideration at all. Even if DUST managed to miraculously generate a couple million dollars in profit in 2015, that's pretty negligible to a company the size of CCP. They're chasing the big bucks. DUST is a small-scale proof-of-concept for a much more ambitious vision. If we can demonstrate attractive retention percentages and spending per player numbers I know CCP will be chomping at the bit to get a port out ASAP. It would be a waste of time to chase the scraps from the existing player base instead of working on a port.
That's not to say it's stupid to continue development. It makes a lot of sense to do so, but only for areas that improve those 2 metics, because progress in those areas would carry over to a port. Notice that's exactly what CCP has been doing for the past year?
DUST really doesn't have any true competition. There are RPG elements in other FPS games, but nothing with the depth of DUST's skill tree and load out system. No multiplayer FPS competitors have the concept of loss like DUST does. There are dozens of more polished FPS games out there, and yet I still keep playing DUST. It's not because I can't afford other games, it's because there are no other games that offer what DUST does, even with its (many) flaws.
With a new port there will be a new round of reviews. If the NPE and balance are up-to-par it's reasonable to expect a large influx of new players who will have a much more positive experience than the Uprising 1.0 launch (clusterf*ck).
Best PvE idea ever!
|
Vell0cet
OSG Planetary Operations
Covert Intervention
3
|
Posted - 2015.07.21 07:38:00 -
[4] - Quote
Golden Day wrote:deezy dabest wrote:Golden Day wrote:Why do people keep saying "port" there is already a half finished version of dust on PC.... Because even with a different name it is still mostly a copy of Dust (at least as presented) so even if other players consider it something else we all know that it is a port of Dust. Look at planetside 2 for example. They rebuilt most of the game to "make it feel like a game built for console" yet even with those differences that came from that rebuild anyone that played it on PC will tell you that it was a port. Legion isn't a port though its much more...better with more features I can't wait to go to caldari cities in HD on my computer....
They're still porting most of the game engine over. It would be insane to re-write everything from scratch. Yes they'll add some different UI's and features (mainly so people will think it's a different game, and so they can get a new round of reviews) but the core of it will almost certainly be very much a port of the existing engine/code.
Best PvE idea ever!
|
Vell0cet
OSG Planetary Operations
Covert Intervention
3
|
Posted - 2015.07.21 08:02:00 -
[5] - Quote
deezy dabest wrote:I can not begin to speculate on the amount Dust makes but I feel like it is better than some of us think which is part of why I stick so much to my argument. I will say it seems far from miraculous to generate a couple million by the end of this year by staying on PS3. I only say this based on my own in game spending, the spending of those around me, and the assumption that some others out of the claimed 300k on and off players we have spitting out more players of the same habit.
I agree that proving a sustainable model can do wonders but the PS4 waters are far too choppy right now for them to even consider a launch there before this year is up IMO.
Player retention has always been a very big issue in this game but the issue becomes cost per acquisition of players on PS4. The cost per acquisition of paying players will likely prove MUCH higher on PS4. Dust was able to obtain meager results in an environment which realistically should have had an extremely low cost per player so obviously a massive amount of work has to be done on not only player acquisition but also revenue per player to offset the increased cost on PS4.
As a player that actually came in on day 1 of uprising I felt like it was the least clusterf*ck this game ever was because there were excited veterans taking place of the terrible NPE aspect but thats only my perspective. I do really wish that CCP would find a way to put more emphasis on player driven NPE to replicate the experience I had but the current situation and the uniqueness of the set up leave me scratching my head for the faintest of ideas on how they could do that.
When it comes to a new round of reviews I have attempted to look at that in depth in many other threads but still can not really say how that would play out as there are too many variables.
Yes the high spending players are the most likely to make the jump. Again, I am speaking from opinion here, I am nearing 2 grand spent on this game and if they said PS4 tomorrow I would likely be one of the first purchasing one just for Dust as my amazon account would not be able to move fast enough for me. The issue there is how much that investment negatively affects ongoing spending over X period of time after that purchase which is a variable that can be very scary for CCP.
It really has been a great discussion on this but I think at this point we have to agree to disagree before this turns into "derailing". I would love to discuss it more in depth in game some time if you like because I think there is perspective to be gained on both sides. I will add you to my Eve watch list and try to catch you online some time. o7
Let me just leave it at this: I really don't see CCP announcing a next-gen version before Valkyrie is released. All of their marketing efforts will be vectored in on Valkyrie's launch (Q1 2016ish?) and they won't want to "dilute" their message by talking about the future of DUST with the press when they're trying to sell Valkyrie. Not to mention Valkyrie would overshadow the messaging on the next-gen version of DUST if they were to announce details before the Valkyrie launch:
e.g. Guy from IGN: "So you're announcing EVE: DustyLegion at this press event today, cool. Tell me more about Valkyrie..."
CCP Rattati: [Groan]
Also I'd be happy to chat on coms, but I've been busy IRL so I haven't been playing much the past few months.
Best PvE idea ever!
|
|
|
| |
|