DUST Search - So Gunjack was developed by a small Shanghai team ?

Vell0cet wrote:

Cross Atu wrote:

Vell0cet wrote:

Soraya Xel wrote:

Vell0cet, that's not even remotely how businesses work. DUST has its own budget, and Gunjack development would pull from the R&D budget. If you just dumped resources into DUST with no concern for proper budgeting, DUST would be a money losing pit and would probably be cancelled. DUST has the resources that DUST can afford.

Sorry but you've got the wrong idea of how business works. Profit/loss are inconsequential for DUST right now. CCP has made the richest Shooter ever. If they invested the resources to get it right, the returns could be bigger than EVE. Hamstringing the project because of a short-term budget shortfalls is a terrible business strategy.

Amazon was founded in 1994 and didn't make an annual profit until 2003. It had millions of investors, why? Because the idea was good. It's not only reasonable in business to sacrifice short-term losses, for huge long-term profits, it's a very good strategy. If CCP hadn't strangled this project's budget, I think they could be bringing in much bigger profits by now.

I agree with your overall assessment, however we must rationally admit that those are projections not objective facts. And that as players clearly invested in this game it is possible we are subject to a certain degree of bias.
Further none of us have access to CCP financials so we don't know what money there was available to be disbursed at any given time. We can infer, we can observe, we can assess, and frankly we should try to stay as aware and up to speed as possible. That's sensible behavior in any purchase. But we must also acknowledge that we do not, and can not, know.

I want to see Dust go the way of Amazon and not Hellgate: London, but it is not as simple as saying "throw enough money at it and it becomes a sure thing" I think upon reflection all of us know that.

Regardless the other projects that CCP is working on at various studios are not in a 1:1 zero sum relationship with EVE, or Dust and the development of either of those flagship products will not be defined, assured, or ended by the presence (or lack there of) of other items within the larger company. If a product needs to be fed cash from outside it's planned budget that's a bad state to be in, even Amazon in the early years was budgeted for the expenditures it had, and intended long term business plan or no, if those expenditures had too far out paced the budgeted resources it could very well have folded just like the Xerox visual UI from the days prior to Apple and MS.

Long term planning is vital to success, you are spot on, but anything successful in business must be able to attain and maintain a self sustaining concept and resource cycle which is exactly what will determine Dusts future AFAIK, not the existence (or lack there of) of any current or future entry in the CCP corporate catalog.

0.02 ISK

Thanks for the articulate (as always) response. While I agree with the zero sum assessment in some respects, ultimately it is a zero-sum game with the overall budget for CCP. My beef isn't with CCP Shanghai so much as with CCP Iceland. Funding projects like this does detract from the overall budget, and also the time/energy/resources of the management in CCP Iceland. For example, if instead of funding a small 3-man team to make this ridiculous mobile app, they had hired a team of 3 guys to build a 1st-class first launch experience for DUST with a real tutorial and showcased/highlighted the elements that make DUST unique, deep and awesome, I think the long-term returns on that investment would be phenomenal.

I'm not advocating dumping millions BLINDLY into development, but instead focusing that spending on aspects that could generate big payoffs down the road. CCP Rattati is doing the right things with the resources he has (for the most part). The problem has been that he doesn't have the manpower to do what needs to be done.

In my spare time I make apps. The most critical thing for any app's success (aside from having a good idea) is having a phenomenal first launch experience. DUST's first launch experience is among the worst in the industry. It's strengths (the depth of fitting, customizability, risk vs. ISK, community, etc.) actually become weaknesses for the new player, because it's not explained and becomes overwhelming. A few million invested in making a great first launch experience could translate into 10x or more over the years (obviously on a different platform).

The priorities should be getting the new player retention numbers and the average spend per player up (balance is obviously critical too). If they can make a product that retains players who are willing to spend money, then you could justify massive budget increases. Our population numbers are low now, so the actual revenue is pretty irrelevant in the big picture. What is critical though is using DUST as a laboratory to establish the proof-of-concept because those stats would scale to other platforms.

If you came to me for an investment with a game (It could be ridiculous, like a Carebear dressup simulator) that had proven high retention and high spending I would be giving you as much as I could to expand that model to a bigger audience. Ultimately that's what counts. In my opinion, the bootstrapping model is flawed.


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 2 post(s)
Avinash Decker Seykal Expeditionary Group Minmatar Republic 212	Posted - 2015.08.04 08:08:00 - [1] - Quote DUST Fiend wrote: howard sanchez wrote: DUST becoming profitable is the only reason it's still alive Fairly sure DUST is only profitable because people keep sucking up AUR and virtually free to make SKINS while development has slowed to a crawl and the majority of the devs are gone. Basically, lower costs to a bare minimum in order to make mediocre sales more impactful. Many devs left the Dust team and a lot major development stopped, but the team then focused on working around with current assets. I think this might explain some stuff if you read most of it. I think I read somewhere on Reddit that basically operational costs is down thus the game is "profitable" . Lastly, player population was mostly down and continue to go down between last fall to early summer. More likely the Dust updates didn't do much at all to keep averages stable or up. Averages went up around mid July, but that happened last year too and the population went down again in the later weeks/months. It most likely going to happen again since there are much more major releases and those releases are bigger this year as well.
Avinash Decker Seykal Expeditionary Group Minmatar Republic 212	Posted - 2015.08.04 18:45:00 - [2] - Quote Vell0cet wrote: Cross Atu wrote: Vell0cet wrote: Soraya Xel wrote: Vell0cet, that's not even remotely how businesses work. DUST has its own budget, and Gunjack development would pull from the R&D budget. If you just dumped resources into DUST with no concern for proper budgeting, DUST would be a money losing pit and would probably be cancelled. DUST has the resources that DUST can afford. Sorry but you've got the wrong idea of how business works. Profit/loss are inconsequential for DUST right now. CCP has made the richest Shooter ever. If they invested the resources to get it right, the returns could be bigger than EVE. Hamstringing the project because of a short-term budget shortfalls is a terrible business strategy. Amazon was founded in 1994 and didn't make an annual profit until 2003. It had millions of investors, why? Because the idea was good. It's not only reasonable in business to sacrifice short-term losses, for huge long-term profits, it's a very good strategy. If CCP hadn't strangled this project's budget, I think they could be bringing in much bigger profits by now. I agree with your overall assessment, however we must rationally admit that those are projections not objective facts. And that as players clearly invested in this game it is possible we are subject to a certain degree of bias. Further none of us have access to CCP financials so we don't know what money there was available to be disbursed at any given time. We can infer, we can observe, we can assess, and frankly we should try to stay as aware and up to speed as possible. That's sensible behavior in any purchase. But we must also acknowledge that we do not, and can not, know. I want to see Dust go the way of Amazon and not Hellgate: London, but it is not as simple as saying "throw enough money at it and it becomes a sure thing" I think upon reflection all of us know that. Regardless the other projects that CCP is working on at various studios are not in a 1:1 zero sum relationship with EVE, or Dust and the development of either of those flagship products will not be defined, assured, or ended by the presence (or lack there of) of other items within the larger company. If a product needs to be fed cash from outside it's planned budget that's a bad state to be in, even Amazon in the early years was budgeted for the expenditures it had, and intended long term business plan or no, if those expenditures had too far out paced the budgeted resources it could very well have folded just like the Xerox visual UI from the days prior to Apple and MS. Long term planning is vital to success, you are spot on, but anything successful in business must be able to attain and maintain a self sustaining concept and resource cycle which is exactly what will determine Dusts future AFAIK, not the existence (or lack there of) of any current or future entry in the CCP corporate catalog. 0.02 ISK Thanks for the articulate (as always) response. While I agree with the zero sum assessment in some respects, ultimately it is a zero-sum game with the overall budget for CCP. My beef isn't with CCP Shanghai so much as with CCP Iceland. Funding projects like this does detract from the overall budget, and also the time/energy/resources of the management in CCP Iceland. For example, if instead of funding a small 3-man team to make this ridiculous mobile app, they had hired a team of 3 guys to build a 1st-class first launch experience for DUST with a real tutorial and showcased/highlighted the elements that make DUST unique, deep and awesome, I think the long-term returns on that investment would be phenomenal. I'm not advocating dumping millions BLINDLY into development, but instead focusing that spending on aspects that could generate big payoffs down the road. CCP Rattati is doing the right things with the resources he has (for the most part). The problem has been that he doesn't have the manpower to do what needs to be done. In my spare time I make apps. The most critical thing for any app's success (aside from having a good idea) is having a phenomenal first launch experience. DUST's first launch experience is among the worst in the industry. It's strengths (the depth of fitting, customizability, risk vs. ISK, community, etc.) actually become weaknesses for the new player, because it's not explained and becomes overwhelming. A few million invested in making a great first launch experience could translate into 10x or more over the years (obviously on a different platform). The priorities should be getting the new player retention numbers and the average spend per player up (balance is obviously critical too). If they can make a product that retains players who are willing to spend money, then you could justify massive budget increases. Our population numbers are low now, so the actual revenue is pretty irrelevant in the big picture. What is critical though is using DUST as a laboratory to establish the proof-of-concept because those stats would scale to other platforms. If you came to me for an investment with a game (It could be ridiculous, like a Carebear dressup simulator) that had proven high retention and high spending I would be giving you as much as I could to expand that model to a bigger audience. Ultimately that's what counts. In my opinion, the bootstrapping model is flawed. I don't think CCP has a whole is focusing on anything with Dust right now. It makes more sense for them to focus on mobile and VR as it is potentially a money maker and they can expand onto something different I think. The Dust team is too small and probably not getting enough money to get much bigger stuff done, but at the same time CCP doesn't seem willing to invest in Dust at all if it is just operating on its own project. The game is not going grow and it really hadn't . If pop raises it only raised back to what it was around a year ago.
Avinash Decker Seykal Expeditionary Group Minmatar Republic 212	Posted - 2015.08.05 00:57:00 - [3] - Quote Vell0cet wrote: Avinash Decker wrote: I don't think CCP has a whole is focusing on anything with Dust right now. It makes more sense for them to focus on mobile and VR as it is potentially a money maker and they can expand onto something different I think. The Dust team is too small and probably not getting enough money to get much bigger stuff done, but at the same time CCP doesn't seem willing to invest in Dust at all if it is just operating on its own project. First, I don't think strapping cellphones to our faces is ever going to really take off (hey, I could be wrong). (A) It's ridiculous and (B) its ridiculous. I don't have a problem with VR either. I think Valkyrie has a chance at being a success. I worry they've made it far too "accessible" (i.e. simplistic in this case) to have the longevity it needs to recoup the development costs. I wouldn't really mind CCP doing something on mobile that made sense (and had a good chance of making a profit). I think Fallout Shelter is a great example of this. It's a mobile app based on the Fallout series, and is the perfect kind of experience for a mobile app. CCP could make a starbase manager where you build your virtual starbase, send ships out to mine, rat, explore, defend PvP attackers, build new ships, manufacture stuff, trade stuff, manage the food/water/power/people etc. of the base. That would be a perfect tie-in to the universe that makes sense on a mobile platform. Quote: The game is not going grow and it really hadn't . If pop raises it only raised back to what it was around a year ago This I really disagree with. Trying to perfect the NPE isn't about getting new players today, it's about increasing the precent. That same percent should roughly apply to a new platform. I'm going to pull fictional numbers out of my ass, but if you could increase retention from 10% to 20%, when the game launches on a new platform with a big marketing push, that additional 10% retention could mean millions of more players retained (and if the average spend is $30) that's a ton of money coming in. Getting the retention high now isn't about a the current numbers, it's about huge money on a relaunch if the NPE is done right. It might not seem it will take off to you, but it is a big focus for CCP and many other companies. I wasn't really talking about that. I'm saying if the average pop is going up now then it just going back to the numbers it was before, but it will most likely go right back down since this is the summer.