Re: An Update on Anthem Next

by cake404
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Re: An Update on Anthem Next

[ Edited ]
Champion (Retired)

@Silversurferguy wrote:

@cake404  No viable business model without micro transactions? Just make a good game, finish it, sell it and be done with it. If they want more, make a sequel or DLC. Maybe that’s too advanced of a business concept in the gaming industry today. Oh well 🤷


Again, there is no surefire way to “just make a good game.” You need to sell it to hundreds of thousands of people to break even on a cost of a AAA title. When each of those people has a non-negotiable opinion of what constitutes a “good game” (and it’s different for each of them) and will start a holy war on your company the moment you release a game that doesn’t conform to those expectations, each release is basically a gamble. Using player feedback doesn’t help when you have a two year development cycle because someone who said they want X two years ago might now want Y, and/or might decide that X actually sucks now that they get the chance to play with it (and will blame the developers because of course they will).

And even if you by some miracle can churn out “good games” on a regular basis, there is no guarantee people will buy them. Sometimes people grow up and stop gaming. Sometimes their interests change. Sometimes they start a family and no longer have time or money for it. All sorts of things happen.

 

The fundamental issue is that when you sell “complete games” for a one-time purchase cost you have to pay the cost of upfront development first, and then you can only hope you make enough money to at least recoup it. Players will want your costs of development to be as close as possible to your revenue, because they want the most out of their money. But if you do that, it means that each successful release only gives you a fraction of the cost of the game as profit. But if you take a loss, you eat the entire loss.

 

Basically, say you release nine perfectly flawless successful games at a 10% profit margin. After 18 years of game development you have now recouped 90% of the upfront cost of developing that first game. Then your tenth game bombs and only makes back half of its development cost. You just wiped out ten years of flawless game development. Furthermore, now everyone on the internet hates your company because clearly you suck, no longer care about making games, the company isn’t the same anymore (which, 20 years later, it probably isn’t) and your next game sells even worse. At this point the publisher has to shut you down because your brand name has become a liability that’s starting to reflect poorly on the publisher (not to mention the financial impact).


Obviously that’s no way to run a business, but the only way to get around that would be to make it so that each game not only recoups its own cost of development but also pays upfront for the next one. The problem with that is, everything works against that. If you try charging double the regular price for a game nobody’s going to buy it. If you try to release a game with half as much content as usual, people will notice and cry about it. In fact people will expect more content, with better quality, meaning your games will cost more to develop, but will accuse you of being greedy if you try to raise the base cost of the game even by $10-20 (despite the fact it has stayed fixed for like a decade at this point). So you end up with your back against the wall in a lose-lose scenario despite your best intentions.

 

So no, your business model isn’t “too advanced” for the industry today. Quite the opposite, it’s too naive and basic to work. And any developers who to try to cater to people with your mentality are on course towards bankruptcy sooner or later.

 

Again, look at the attached picture and try to understand it. The “upfront purchase followed up by microtransactions” model isn’t about being greedy and maximizing profits so much as avoiding catastrophic loss (which would otherwise be inevitable because it’s a high risk industry by its very nature)

Message 51 of 199 (1,772 Views)

Re: An Update on Anthem Next

@cake404   thanks for the explanation... It's good to know some players don't live in Utopia but I don't think we represent the majority.

It's easier to give non constructive negative comments on any subject (and it spread faster) than trying to explain the reality without taking sides so thanks for the effort.

_____________________________________________________

- Carpe diem and enjoy your game -


    Just a normal gamer trying to help – not working for EA




Message 52 of 199 (1,827 Views)

Re: An Update on Anthem Next

★★ Novice

I think with this move EA defrauded its customers. It is shameful.

Message 53 of 199 (1,818 Views)

Re: An Update on Anthem Next

★★ Pro

Hi guys, actually all I want is to continue the story with maybe a new Stronghold and something like the Cataclysm event.

Message 54 of 199 (1,781 Views)

Re: An Update on Anthem Next

@cake404  If it’s not about greed or maximizing profits, explain to me the case of battlefront 2 when it initially released. You think a beloved Star Wars game like battlefront wouldn’t sell like hot cakes and they just HAD to cram micro transactions in the worst possible way via pay to win/pay to progress loot boxes? Explain the entire sports genre of games which are low effort, copy and paste, annual cash cows that rake in so much money through micro transactions that they make the financial back bone of EA. I’m not buying into the narrative that micro transactions are necessary in today’s market. Especially when you have games like Jedi fallen order, doom eternal, and dragon ball fighterz that shipped with no micro transactions and were very successful. 

Message 55 of 199 (1,754 Views)

Re: An Update on Anthem Next

[ Edited ]
★★ Guide

 Guess I am really sorry not only for Anthem's but for Bioware's fate too,whose reputation and acknowledgement is actually being destroyed by EA.I am sure I wont be buying DAge4 if the money goes to EA, no more voting with my money there.I am not feeling sorry for money spent on Anthem,but I am feeling sorry that some of that money went to fabricating false promises about its future developement.

Message 56 of 199 (1,751 Views)

Re: An Update on Anthem Next

★ Apprentice

How pathetic. Leading all these gullible people on for over two years and you do this to them. Why anyone would give you a chance for a new IP blows the mind as there will be. Thank you for the dead franchise.

Message 57 of 199 (1,713 Views)

Re: An Update on Anthem Next

★★★ Guide

EA’s decision to abandon Anthem plays into the EA-hate. It also hurts Bioware’s reputation.

I think the right move would have been to power through  and show us a redemption story with Anthem. It needed to be the newest example in the movement of making things right.

Instead what they’ve done is create, at best, a Netflix-style tragic docu-series on a total calamity with EA and BioWare at the center of it with abused devs under them. Not as inspiring.

Message 58 of 199 (1,712 Views)

Re: An Update on Anthem Next

Champion (Retired)

@Spiritual-Zombie wrote:

EA’s decision to abandon Anthem plays into the EA-hate. It also hurts Bioware’s reputation.

I think the right move would have been to power through  and show us a redemption story with Anthem. It needed to be the newest example in the movement of making things right.

Instead what they’ve done is create, at best, a Netflix-style tragic docu-series on a total calamity with EA and BioWare at the center of it with abused devs under them. Not as inspiring.


For that to happen the players needed to show support, both vocally and monetarily. Otherwise they would have created an expectation of “redemption stories” happening every time. A lot of the people around launch were saying that Anthem should “do a FFXIV” and go back and remake the entire thing from scratch. That’s not a viable model, as a rule. FFXIV could do it because Final Fantasy is one of those unicorn, consistently successful long-running brands with a cult following. And even then, they probably wouldn’t be able to keep doing it again and again with each new game.

 

With Bioware, “fans” have been jumping on their throat and declaring their games “rushed” since at least Dragon Age 2. If they had to develop each game twice they would never even begin to break even.

Message 59 of 199 (1,796 Views)

Re: An Update on Anthem Next

@cake404  Right, cuz charging $60 for an unfinished broken game with no content and then trying to sell skins for an additional $10-$15 is such a good deal for us players.....meanwhile future plans were canceled, the only permanent addition was one stronghold, the rest being temporary events. Good deal 👏👏👏 those micro transactions really paid off for anthem. 

 

I said it before and I’ll say it again. Keep the micro transactions in free to play games if you want to do that; not in games that charge an upfront price

Message 60 of 199 (1,794 Views)