DUST Search - Take it with a grain of dustGäó

GeneralButtNaked wrote:

Accomplishing their goals or not is not actually the issue. There are two main thrusts to my doubts. The first is the economics, the second is the philosophy of CCP as a developer(or maybe the tpye of player the have gotten accustomed to, not really sure on this one).

The economic concern is that in order for a F2P/microtransaction model to be viable, it requires a large player base. Not all players will invest real money into the game. So the revenue stream only comes from a percentage of players. In order for that revenue stream to be large enough, the percentage must come from a large enough base. If you had a 40% investment rate(percentage of players regularly investing money) then you might need a player base of x to support the game. If you only had a 10% rate you would need 4x players to make the same revenue. CCP needs to find the right balance of casuals and vets to make that revenue stream a reality. Can they do that with the game as it is now? No way. Can they do it with what is planned over the next year? Maybe, but that is highly dependent on the number and quality of any updates. Right now, there does not seem to be a large player base. I say that only because I do not see that many different people throughout my several hours of play everyday.

GeneralButtNaked wrote:

The concern regarding philosphy stems from the fact that the game is not at all friendly to newcomers. Maybe that will change when PC hits, but it could also happen that there will be plenty of people who although they pack the SP they will not have the raw skill to be an important cog in the PC wheel. These folks will get shunted back to pub matches, where they will punish noobs as hard as they can. People who are used to playing balanced(or simple) shooters will have a difficult time trying to adjust, and many of them will not even bother to adjust their mindset to the New Eden way of thinking. This bodes ill for that economic factor I was talking about before.

With that said, I do think that CCP has a plan. I wish I knew more about it, but I am really hoping they have thought all this through, and have clear goals relating to how they are going to increase player retention, and provide enough incentive for people to invest real money into the game.

CCP has shown a willingness to tough it out and keep developing until the get something worthwhile. The real question is what type of playerbase they will be able to retain by the time they get there.

Make no mistake though, the clock is ticking, and unless CCP really goes all out on the next build, I am doubtful about the long term viability of Dust. CCP wouldn't put themselves in financial jeopardy over a side project. If push comes to shove they will bin Dust and go back to Eve if they had to.

Lets be optimistic and hope that next build is a rocker.


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mollerz s1ck3r Corp 96	Posted - 2013.03.25 05:28:00 - [1] - Quote Can we replace SOONGäó with Take it with a grain of dustGäó at this point? An I mean that in the sense I think this game will roll over every FPS in the next two years TOPS.
mollerz s1ck3r Corp 96	Posted - 2013.03.25 05:38:00 - [2] - Quote Why wouldn't it? They have too much going for them to long term fail on it. Growing pains alway super suck until you quickly can't remember ever caring about it. They could do things better for us as a community, but they have weird **** to tight rope walk.. and it matters in the long run as much as the ridiculously amazingly PRESENT much less persistent core game mechanic bugs. Once it really takes off and starts rocking... you'll have been a beta tester and been there from the start, no? Look at it like evaluating a stock... do you think they can accomplish their goals or not? ME? I think they not only will, but drive a lot of competition to shi ttheir pants. Shortly.
mollerz s1ck3r Corp 96	Posted - 2013.03.25 06:17:00 - [3] - Quote Yep... sentiment is down. You guys are right on about that. Be careful about the bandwagons you jump on. Its easy to jump ship.
mollerz s1ck3r Corp 96	Posted - 2013.03.25 06:20:00 - [4] - Quote Three Double-A Batteries wrote: mollerz wrote: Can we replace SOONGäó with Take it with a grain of dustGäó at this point? An I mean that in the sense I think this game will roll over every FPS in the next two years TOPS. Let's wait for the reviews to come out. They generally deal with the present thankfully. They also deal with full releases. To say thankfully... man. I wish you could hear it as opposed to type it.
mollerz s1ck3r Corp 96	Posted - 2013.03.25 19:42:00 - [5] - Quote GeneralButtNaked wrote: Accomplishing their goals or not is not actually the issue. There are two main thrusts to my doubts. The first is the economics, the second is the philosophy of CCP as a developer(or maybe the tpye of player the have gotten accustomed to, not really sure on this one). The economic concern is that in order for a F2P/microtransaction model to be viable, it requires a large player base. Not all players will invest real money into the game. So the revenue stream only comes from a percentage of players. In order for that revenue stream to be large enough, the percentage must come from a large enough base. If you had a 40% investment rate(percentage of players regularly investing money) then you might need a player base of x to support the game. If you only had a 10% rate you would need 4x players to make the same revenue. CCP needs to find the right balance of casuals and vets to make that revenue stream a reality. Can they do that with the game as it is now? No way. Can they do it with what is planned over the next year? Maybe, but that is highly dependent on the number and quality of any updates. Right now, there does not seem to be a large player base. I say that only because I do not see that many different people throughout my several hours of play everyday. There are a couple pieces to your figures. First, CCP is a private company, so we end up knowing very little about their financials. Although they did just have a huge layoff not too long ago that doesn't mean they are in any financial trouble. All the Dust overhead comes down to staffing. The infrastructure is Eves infrastructure so that is covered. I'd imagine dust is pulling in a decent enough return to cover most if not all development cost. Only they know their sales figures, but I'd bet dust is self sufficient. For now. GeneralButtNaked wrote: The concern regarding philosphy stems from the fact that the game is not at all friendly to newcomers. Maybe that will change when PC hits, but it could also happen that there will be plenty of people who although they pack the SP they will not have the raw skill to be an important cog in the PC wheel. These folks will get shunted back to pub matches, where they will punish noobs as hard as they can. People who are used to playing balanced(or simple) shooters will have a difficult time trying to adjust, and many of them will not even bother to adjust their mindset to the New Eden way of thinking. This bodes ill for that economic factor I was talking about before. With that said, I do think that CCP has a plan. I wish I knew more about it, but I am really hoping they have thought all this through, and have clear goals relating to how they are going to increase player retention, and provide enough incentive for people to invest real money into the game. CCP has shown a willingness to tough it out and keep developing until the get something worthwhile. The real question is what type of playerbase they will be able to retain by the time they get there. Make no mistake though, the clock is ticking, and unless CCP really goes all out on the next build, I am doubtful about the long term viability of Dust. CCP wouldn't put themselves in financial jeopardy over a side project. If push comes to shove they will bin Dust and go back to Eve if they had to. Lets be optimistic and hope that next build is a rocker. I am so happy there is a shooter coming into being that isn't a balanced POS. They might not get the most marketshare, but they will end up with a solid customer base. There has been quite a few people, who after playing dust, got super curious about eve. Now- that's where your concerns should truly lie as far as being punishing to noobs. But alas- same thing. Not everyone will stick to it, but any bump to your subscriber base is a great thing, and I bet dust has worked out well in that sense. Once the markets open up, and dust players realize how much money they could make to fund their duvolle habit, I bet eve sees a bigger spike in subs. But yea, it would be nice to have some notion of their road map.. if even just a couple months out that was updated here and there. I am not sure when the first rocker build will come, but I am betting it won't be the next one. But there will eventually be one that pumps us up. Probably when it launches on the PS4. The PS3 and their dumb cell chip isn't the easiest thing to program, so I bet their developers are having issues. Those issues would clear up once the PS4 on an x86 platform is in the works.
mollerz s1ck3r Corp 96	Posted - 2013.03.25 19:42:00 - [6] - Quote XeroTheBigBoss wrote: There is already threads whining about same topic....This is a BETA!!! THE END! Devs lock it up! I'm the anti-those-threads.