A critical look at Turbine status (external article)

[nibel]

http://playervsdeveloper.blogspot.com.br/2012/12/a-critical-look-at-turbines-status.html

The article looks much more focused on LotRO than DDO, but there is some stuff here and there about this game. I just wanted to show it up, and see the reactions.

[Gkar]

Typical blog. Says the obvious:

1) The company has never given us any hard facts about their long term profitability
2) The company could be doing great, but we don't know
3) The company could be about to fail, but we don't know

[hit_fido]

The irony starts early in this one: "Turbine's success is often taken as gospel based on press statements that lack context." Goes on to cite doing away with German/French localization while not mentioning the new Mac client in testing. Then makes prediction based on using their self as representative of all players.

The "lack context" thing seems to pervade most doom threads. I've yet to see a really balanced (and objective) take that looks at both negative and positive signs and tries to make sense of the entire picture; and this article also follows the "let us enumerate all the reasons Turbine may be failing without looking at contrary evidence" model. But even a balanced look would be speculation unless or until Turbine offers more data. In that vacuum I expect more arm chair analysis in the future, which is ok - it can be fun if kept in perspective!

I still appreciate the article citing some outdated information I hadn't seen before, the list of top sellers from early 2010 is interesting!

[Willibold]

And if the company told us it was doing well, we'd say its because they were charging too much,or if doing poorly the dooooooom mongers would start baying that it was all because it cost too much. As a matter of interest, what does a sub to WoW cost per annum compared to DDO? Or Mechwarrior online , etc? I seem to remember that both do or will cost more. Conan used to cost more, so I wonder who is being overcharged.

[AZgreentea]

I'm not sure how you can call the game unprofitable with anecdotes and data that is more than two years old. The only current data is the employment shakeup, and that can have plenty of causes outside of profits.

Considering DDO recently (especially 'recently' when compared to the other dates in the blog) got a new license for D&D and expanded into the FR, I somehow doubt that a new license for the even more profitable LotRO is in question. Especially considering that WB is about to release a three part movie series based in the realm.

[El_Magico_Gonzalez]

It reminds me at those news saying "Fidel Castro is dying".

Some day they will be right.

[MRMechMan]

It reminds me at those news saying "Fidel Castro is dying".

Some day they will be right.

We all are, act accordingly :D.

[Beethoven]

The article looks much more focused on LotRO than DDO, but there is some stuff here and there about this game. I just wanted to show it up, and see the reactions.

I stopped reading after he pretty much opened with "what nobody (including WB, professional magazines and the entirety of the game development companies) realizes is the greater truth (context) only I know".

It's simply silly to assume everyone and their monkey (ie professional companies) took what Turbine said about DDO as gospel and copied their business model without doing any research.

[susiedupfer]

More rampant speculation obviously intended to increase hits. Because it was posted in forums, it succeeded. Inquiring minds want to know if the OP was the author, or otherwise involved in, this blog.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

The only relatively "hard facts" we know of are these :

- Turbine hired additional people for MOTU
- Turbine fired people after Motu - perhaps those which had been the "additional ones"
- Turbine hired a few "gaming veterans"
- Turbine stops translaing DDO

[Gkar]

More rampant speculation obviously intended to increase hits. Because it was posted in forums, it succeeded. Inquiring minds want to know if the OP was the author, or otherwise involved in, this blog.

Good point. It could be considered a forum rules violation if that is the case.

Oh, but to give the author credit, he tagged his article as "Baseless Speculation"

[nibel]

Inquiring minds want to know if the OP was the author, or otherwise involved in, this blog.

Not at all. A friend just linked it to me on Facebook, and I wanted to share.

[BurnerD]

It;s not uncommon for an employee shakeup to occur after a company is bought. There is usually a period of time after the purchase before it occurs. WB likely came in and did a review of current staffing and function and restructured. This may or may not have anything to do with profitability.

Turbine does have it's challenges with this game however. 2013 being a make or break year may be accurate. The number of issue players are currently experiencing needs to be addressed. I'm sure the front line workers at turbine are communicating this on a regular basis. Now it's just a question a whether or not management will provide the necessary time and resources to fix the problem.

If you don't have the infrastructure in place to grow rapid growth can bring you to your knees. I would guess the frustration levels in QA and development are at a very high level right now.

I hope to see the game prosper for years to come. Should the game shut down in the near future I will have fond memories of the last several years. Life goes on.....

[ninjadwarf_uk]

It's about perspective.

New senior management = restructuring under new ownership to grow the business
New items in the store = store planners understand what players want and offer it to increase revenue
Higher prices in the store = price setters have analysis of what the market will bear and price accordingly to maximize revenue
Layoffs on development team = just finished an expansion, refocusing the team to meet normal development requirements
Removal of non English language support = analysis of cost / benefit leads to change to remove loss making function

100k likes on Facebook = pretty solid player base
Continuing development of new content = no plans to shut down the game
Update of licence to include forgotten realms = expectation of long term growth

See, this looks like a pretty solid company making good business decisions and planning for the long term

Without real data you can shape a few bits of information to suit your own point of view easily.

[AZgreentea]

Continuing development of new content = no plans to shut down the game
Update of licence to include forgotten realms = expectation of long term growth

Not necessarily on the development side. City of Hero's put out a new expansion 3 months before the development team was walked out the door.

However, renewing a (probably not cheap) license for Eberron, FR, and LotRO is a very good sign.

[Luxgolg]

From the article:
I don't think Turbine is going to be the surprise MMO studio closure of 2013, but I do think this may be a moment of truth for the company. According to a 2008 press release, the LOTRO's license for the intellectual property runs through 2014 with options to extend it through 2017. Having a sudden and unfavorable chance in the license terms is the one thing that can suddenly kill a game that had been coasting along without issues.

Considering someone at Turbine forgot to pay for the domain name, do you think they will also forget to re-license the "intellectual property" also? Or maybe another company is already in negotiations to procure it...

[DocBenway]

It's about perspective.

100k likes on Facebook = pretty solid player base


I don't know because I do not use Facebook, but do likes expire? Does someone who quit the game a year an a half ago manually 'Unlike" the page?

I remember the "Like for Less" deal that got a whopping 25TP off Hearts because the deal posting got 3.5% of the likes that the DDO page already had.

About 66,000 total likes in July '11.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

"Consolidation" among MMOs is expected since a few years now. No joke.
Everyone in the business *knows* that a few MMOs will just close - although of course no-one knows which ones and when.

[ninjadwarf_uk]

To clarify, I wasn't saying my points were correct, just that you can interpret things however you want too.

[IronClan]

I think the absense of data makes it a rather absurd subject to speculate on. All we can see seems to indicate the game is healthy (ongoing updates, no layoffs of well known devs (Mad, Feather, etc. the recent FR license). Those nameless layoffs were (and I hate to say this but it's probably the case based on other industry examples) probably largely extra Q/A team brought in to vet MOTU and some newer assistant/temp level art/mesh people to help with the expansion. They didn't bring in top talent, a lead designer, top 3d animator, vertex puller, lead artist, and head programmer and then laid them off.

The localization thing bugs me, because localization is a low cost for high return. However that decision may have been a quality decision (i.e. What they had done was so poorly translated, that they just decided to scrap the whole thing and regroup)... I'm almost betting on the latter. I have read European members here say that what they had localized was fairly bad.

So imagine they had a third of the game localized into the German equivelent to a "Engrish" translation. "All your Bravery Bonus are belong to us" Scrapping what they had and laying off those responsible would be a good business move under those circumstances.

[Ralmeth]

I lost interest once I figured out the author was just a blogger stating their opinion, and not a real financial analysis of Turbine's business. It's just speculation so I would take it with a pretty big grain of salt.

[smatt]

s.

Considering someone at Turbine forgot to pay for the domain name, do you think they will also forget to re-license the "intellectual property" also? Or maybe another company is already in negotiations to procure it...

The domain screw-up a few weeks before a expansion ws one of the stupidest things a completely incompetant managment team could've done. No doubt about that.... Seems there's some moves on that front though...


As for the LOTRO license... You might just might take a gander at who now owns Turbine, and who controls the OTHER licenses for LOTRO type properties.....

As for this article.. Meh.... Jsuta guy speculating to get clicks.. Seems he really knows very little, he's not even all that great at speculation...

[DocBenway]

...(ongoing updates, no layoffs of well known devs (Mad, Feather, etc. the recent FR license). Those nameless layoffs were (and I hate to say this but it's probably the case based on other industry examples) probably largely extra Q/A team brought in to vet MOTU ...

I beg to differ on "nameless layoffs"
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=396357

Now if this were some other "well known" I could see parties in the streets and much rejoicing due to perceived ruining of the parts of the game they are responsible for, but this was a communicative dev with passion who responded to player criticism and point of view by taking it into account when designing/changing things. A loss for the game company and playerbase as a whole.

[Luxgolg]

As for the LOTRO license... You might just might take a gander at who now owns Turbine, and who controls the OTHER licenses for LOTRO type properties.....

Warner Brothers...Direct competition for Disney :p

[oliocean]

The only relatively "hard facts" we know of are these :

...
- Turbine stops translaing DDO


I'm from Germany and I don't notice this at all.
Playing the translated version of the game is a pain simply because you can't map anything to ddowiki.com or the forum. For me it's much easier to use the English game client instead of the translated one.

From my point of view they have done the biggest error when they transferred all the European players from Codemasters to their international servers. As far as I remember the F2P client wasn't localised at that point. If they had created new localised servers like Wayfinder and game clients at that point, then they may be successful.

[Eladiun]

The only relatively "hard facts" we know of are these :

- Turbine hired additional people for MOTU
- Turbine fired people after Motu - perhaps those which had been the "additional ones"
- Turbine hired a few "gaming veterans"
- Turbine stops translaing DDO


I would add...

- Pack prices have increased nearly 100%
- Store item costs increasing with vanity items topping $50
- Show stopper bugs in both MMO's make it to live

[Marcus-Hawkeye]

I played Asherons Call 2, another Turbine game a number of years back. Loved the game, played it all the time. They kept saying they were good, everything was fine. Then one day they decided to close the game. I'm not saying I didn't see it coming, but they pretty much lied to thier customer base. I'm guessing no matter which way it's going for them, they won't say anything about it now, not after the fiasco AC2 closing caused. They'll keep their traps shut until they have no other choice.

[Stormanne]

The game will be here until it's not. To try and look in to the future to determine when "not" will occur is a waste of time, to me.

[badbob117]

Well one thing i agree with in article is that 2013 is indeed a defining year for Turbine. I hope they bounce back. If not it was a great run. Probs the longest running game that gave me enjoyment to the bitter end.

The lord of the rings could see a bit of a population boost with The Hobbit movie on the horizon, if Turbine actually decides to tell people the game exists with some adds. Otherwise its just bad pr on their part.

This game is on the heals of a Enhancement overhaul. Could bring back some players and if it is not to buggy. That along with a new raid or two in 2013 could revitalize the player base a bit. As long as loot is good and raid is not anything like caught in the web. A few minor tweaks to old content, loot and classes, much needed bug fixes and this game could be great again. It is still awesome but it could be better.

Both Games could easily move forward and continue to prosper but not until Turbine smartens up a bit. Lack of advertising and pr has hurt both games immensely. Most gamers still have never heard of DDO. I sincerely think that instead of cramming pay to win and fluff down its current player bases throats, Turbine would be better off spending their resources on some adds to lure new blood in. Until that happens were just gonna keep getting squeezed with increased costs, fluff and pay to win...

2013 is a huge year for both games. Could be the end if Turbine does not play its cards right. It can go the route of zynga facebook apps and die fast. Or it can go another route and flourish.. It is not up to us to decide this. It is up to Turbine and WB. Only time will tell.. There options are pretty straight forward. Make a game worth playing or make a micro transaction abomination that scares us all away.

That is my two cents. 2013 will be big year for this game. I hope they calm the waves and start sailing in the right direction..

[slarden]

I played Asherons Call 2, another Turbine game a number of years back. Loved the game, played it all the time. They kept saying they were good, everything was fine. Then one day they decided to close the game. I'm not saying I didn't see it coming, but they pretty much lied to thier customer base. I'm guessing no matter which way it's going for them, they won't say anything about it now, not after the fiasco AC2 closing caused. They'll keep their traps shut until they have no other choice.

Yep. There is absolutely no basis to predict doom and no basis to predict a great future.

[slarden]

Well one thing i agree with in article is that 2013 is indeed a defining year for Turbine. I hope they bounce back. If not it was a great run. Probs the longest running game that gave me enjoyment to the bitter end.

The lord of the rings could see a bit of a population boost with The Hobbit movie on the horizon, if Turbine actually decides to tell people the game exists with some adds. Otherwise its just bad pr on their part.

This game is on the heals of a Enhancement overhaul. Could bring back some players and if it is not to buggy. That along with a new raid or two in 2013 could revitalize the player base a bit. As long as loot is good and raid is not anything like caught in the web. A few minor tweaks to old content, loot and classes, much needed bug fixes and this game could be great again. It is still awesome but it could be better.

Both Games could easily move forward and continue to prosper but not until Turbine smartens up a bit. Lack of advertising and pr has hurt both games immensely. Most gamers still have never heard of DDO. I sincerely think that instead of cramming pay to win and fluff down its current player bases throats, Turbine would be better off spending their resources on some adds to lure new blood in. Until that happens were just gonna keep getting squeezed with increased costs, fluff and pay to win...

2013 is a huge year for both games. Could be the end if Turbine does not play its cards right. It can go the route of zynga facebook apps and die fast. Or it can go another route and flourish.. It is not up to us to decide this. It is up to Turbine and WB. Only time will tell.. There options are pretty straight forward. Make a game worth playing or make a micro transaction abomination that scares us all away.

That is my two cents. 2013 will be big year for this game. I hope they calm the waves and start sailing in the right direction..

I think 2013 is a critical year in only one respect: WB will decide whether or not to sell Turbine if they haven't already determined their direction.

[Eladiun]

I think 2013 is a critical year in only one respect: WB will decide whether or not to sell Turbine if they haven't already determined their direction.

I've been wondering about this as well. WB bought Turbine with something in mind for the company beyond their existing products. I expect to see what that was in the coming year.

[yawumpus]

I think 2013 is a critical year in only one respect: WB will decide whether or not to sell Turbine if they haven't already determined their direction.

If so, it will have a lot to do with LOTRO and almost nothing to do with DDO. Best guess is that will involve some sort of Harry Potter MMO.

[Grosbeak07]

If so, it will have a lot to do with LOTRO and almost nothing to do with DDO. Best guess is that will involve some sort of Harry Potter MMO.

If Harry Potter was to happen, it would have by now. With the movies done and no more books, interest will (and has) drop off rapidly.

[GermanicusMaximus]

I think 2013 is a critical year in only one respect: WB will decide whether or not to sell Turbine if they haven't already determined their direction.

To sell Turbine, you have to be able to find someone willing to BUY Turbine.

I have no idea how LOTRO is doing, but DDO doesn't look like a compelling acquisition, certainly nothing like it did in early 2010 when WB purchased it.

1) Player counts are down

2) It has already ridden the easy revenue spike of one time purchases, and is now struggling to find ongoing revenue sources

3) MadFloyd has admitted that the code base is nothing more than a pile of spaghetti

4) There is a large (and growing) amount of negative player commentary

Anyone doing due diligence for a purchase would have significant reason to pause. A buyer would have to believe that they could do a better job with this situation than WB has.

If the LOTRO outlook is better, it might be more financially advantageous to do some creative accounting to see how much of that $160 million purchase price could be attributed to DDO, close the game, and take a tax loss.

[diamabel]

I have long ago canceled my subscription. Instead I mainly spend TPs to unlock adventures, classes, races and increase the number of character slots. The rest (e.g. tomes, bags, potions, equipment, etc.) can be acquired in-game. Crafting allows you to find an armor whose look you like and then enchant it. No need to spend TPs on cosmetics.

In the long run that is cheaper than a subscription. It would be interesting to see if the f2p route is sustainable.

[Galeria]

Green Amarillo seems to be a hard-hitting and serious journalist.

http://i1072.photobucket.com/albums/w378/galeriaddo/scenic.gif Doom, doom, doom!

[squishwizzy]

3) MadFloyd has admitted that the code base is nothing more than a pile of spaghetti


Gosh, I'm shocked. No, really...

[squishwizzy]

If Turbine is doing poorly, you're not going to know. That gets released, people will bolt, their subscriptions will dry up, and their end will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If they are doing great, you're not going to know. They don't want people copying their model, they don't want to deal with people wanting more for less, and so on. They want to keep their profits, and keep the ball rolling.

So you're not going to know one way or the other until it all comes crashing down.

Not fixing bugs is not a sign they are doing poorly. It's a sign of bad design, maybe some poor hiring decisions, maybe poort project management - there are a dozen factors involved.

Not translating stuff is not an indication either. You start going down that road there are all sorts of factors involved like the cost of translation, ongoing maintenance (bug fixes), consistency, string lengths, font types and display sizes, right-to-left text considerations, and so on. If 80% of your userbase is English-speaking, or 90% at least understands English, adding additional languages becomes REAL difficult to cost-justify.

It's when they stop bug-fixing and stop with content additions or changes. That's the warning sign. They haven't. So I wouldn't worry too much.

You'd be surprised how long it takes for even the most whacked-outm dysfunctional organizations to go belly-up once they've had a decent infusion of revenue over a couple of years.

[Chai]

None of these individually allows us to distinguish a for-profit company making reasonable efforts to increase revenue from a less favorable scenario in which the studio is struggling to maintain revenue as the short-term gains from the game's front-loaded business model are translating into non-subscribers who no longer need to purchase much of anything.

This.

The blogger at least in part did their homework to understand that many of the measures they have put in place recently are short term, which means when the player base is saturated with this older microtransaction stuff, they will have to continue to inject more of it at higher levels of power into the player base in order to keep them interested in paying for it. How gluttonous is this playerbase will ing to be to pay for reduced grind and limitless mana? The measuring stick is no longer money, it is time, because the blogger understands just as I do that there will come a time when the in game population is so saturated with it, they will not be willing to pay more for it to get slightly better than they already paid in the past for it to become. License runs out in 2014? Lulz. Its going to be hilarious when we are bored with in store +6 tomes, and are unwilling to pay 3800 TP each for +7 tomes, heh.

[GermanicusMaximus]

Not fixing bugs is not a sign they are doing poorly. It's a sign of bad design, maybe some poor hiring decisions, maybe poort project management - there are a dozen factors involved.


I can agree with "bad design, maybe some poor hiring decisions, maybe poort project management".

Its also a sign that they lack some combo of

1) technical skill
2) the financial ability to hire the needed technical skill
3) the confidence that the game will be around long enough to merit the expense of hiring the needed technical skill

In a game that derives revenue from selling new content, new content will be around right up to the point where the games goes on auto pilot to milk the last few dollars of revenue from the truly addicted.

The best indicator of the health of a game running on a micro transaction model is the quality of software infrastructure. In generates no direct revenue, but is the key enabler for the long term future of the game. Unfortunately, MadFloyd's remarks says it all.

[Chai]

Not fixing bugs is not a sign they are doing poorly. It's a sign of bad design, maybe some poor hiring decisions, maybe poort project management - there are a dozen factors involved.



Not fixing bugs is a sign that the game is no longer the product. The store items you can buy to circumvent game balance is the new product and the game is the environment we use that product in. You can bet that if any of those bugs had to do with people not being able to buy raid timer bypass, theyd be on it lickety split. Bugs? What bugs? :p

[Postumus]

I have no idea how LOTRO is doing, but DDO doesn't look like a compelling acquisition, certainly nothing like it did in early 2010 when WB purchased it.

1) Player counts are down

Speculation. No proof either way.




2) It has already ridden the easy revenue spike of one time purchases, and is now struggling to find ongoing revenue sources

Speculation. No documented proof.



3) MadFloyd has admitted that the code base is nothing more than a pile of spaghetti

Irrelevant to company success. You find me a code monkey who doesn't b**ch about a legacy system/code and I'll buy you a rolex.




4) There is a large (and growing) amount of negative player commentary


Completely speculative. Remove the forum posts from people who say they no longer play DDO (which are almost universally negative) and I see no evidence of 'growing' negativity. The majority of the complaints I see here are from self-described former players. (And for the record, didn't you recently state you no longer play DDO?)


Your entire 'analysis' (read: opinion) of Turbine's financial situation is based on speculation and ZERO verifiable, documented information from credible sources except for the layoffs (which don't always indicate negative growth such as in the cases of outsourcing).


On the other hand, it has been documented by multiple sources that the MoTU expansion and the LOTRO expansion have done well (although no actual sales numbers were published that I have seen).


In short, your analysis of Turbine's financial woes sound more like sour grapes. And I'm not saying that to get a rise out of you, I generally agree with your criticism of Turbine's execution snafus, but lately your posts regarding this subject come across sounding like a disappointed customer who is intentionally looking for the worst possible spin on everything to justify his dissatisfaction; and that really undermines any value your message might have had.

[Chai]

I can agree with "bad design, maybe some poor hiring decisions, maybe poort project management".

Its also a sign that they lack some combo of

1) technical skill
2) the financial ability to hire the needed technical skill
3) the confidence that the game will be around long enough to merit the expense of hiring the needed technical skill

In a game that derives revenue from selling new content, new content will be around right up to the point where the games goes on auto pilot to milk the last few dollars of revenue from the truly addicted.

The best indicator of the health of a game running on a micro transaction model is the quality of software infrastructure. In generates no direct revenue, but is the key enabler for the long term future of the game. Unfortunately, MadFloyd's remarks says it all.

What they lack is prioritizing the bugs the same way the players prioritize the bugs. If something screws up a players ability to play, it doesnt get the same priority as a bug that screws up their ability to make money. Its less a skill or ability issue, and more of an allocation issue.

[doomteen007]

Not fixing bugs is a sign that the game is no longer the product. The store items you can buy to circumvent game balance is the new product and the game is the environment we use that product in. You can bet that if any of those bugs had to do with people not being able to buy raid timer bypass, theyd be on it lickety split. Bugs? What bugs? :p

And they have been- challenges giving players a decent amount of xp/min for the amount of work/challenge/level to get a decent start on their outrageous 15million ED xp needed?? Nerfed within 2 weeks.

Mobs and players getting stuck in walls causing things to become uncompletable? Eh, we'll get to it... eventually... maybe not... (8 months later) hey, we have a possible fix!

BTW what are these bugs you refer to? DDO doesnt have bugs, only 'features'...

[Kiel]

You know regardless of how Turbine is doing financially,overall ive very much enjoyed playing these last few years.From a business standpoint im not sure what would be right,if you announce that you make too much money or have too big of a playerbase you risk the "big corporate hate" profile,but if you report that sales are sliding and things arent looking good people i think would be reluctant to spend money on it at all simply because of fear of it shutting down in the near future.

That being said i enjoy the playerbase(most of them) more than i have in any other mmo,im not sure why maybe a small part of it is overall you guys seem more reserved and tend to not get those huge general chat arguments over something that has nothing to do with the game itself.

As always ill hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

I blame cellphones for alot of the downsizing and layoff's currently affecting the game industry.

[GermanicusMaximus]

Speculation. No proof either way.

Speculation. No documented proof.

Irrelevant to company success. You find me a code monkey who doesn't b**ch about a legacy system/code and I'll buy you a rolex.

Completely speculative. Remove the forum posts from people who say they no longer play DDO (which are almost universally negative) and I see no evidence of 'growing' negativity. The majority of the complaints I see here are from self-described former players. (And for the record, didn't you recently state you no longer play DDO?)

Your entire 'analysis' (read: opinion) of Turbine's financial situation is based on speculation and ZERO verifiable, documented information from credible sources except for the layoffs (which don't always indicate negative growth such as in the cases of outsourcing).


[shrug] I expect that people like you will be as shocked (shocked!) as the Turbine employees who suddenly found themselves "restructured".

At this point, to deny the difficulties that DDO is experiencing is ridiculous, but we find pretty much the same apologists in every thread which attempts to discuss this issue in an adult manner. There does seem to be a gradual thinning of the herd mentality, however, as one by one some of the people who formerly apologized for Turbine start to voice their own concerns.

I have been writing about the difficulties that DDO is facing for the majority of this year. If anything, I have been too optimistic, as I never expected Turbine to have to restructure in 2012.



On the other hand, it has been documented by multiple sources that the MoTU expansion and the LOTRO expansion have done well (although no actual sales numbers were published that I have seen).


As I stated in my prior post, I have no knowledge of LOTRO and my commentary is based upon what is happening in DDO.

MotU pre sales were undoubtedly impressive, as I have stated several times before. The reality of the expansion, rather than the hopes and dreams of people who bought it sight unseen, is dramatically different.



In short, your analysis of Turbine's financial woes sound more like sour grapes.

And here we come down to the net of your "contribution". Unable to offer anything of substance from a technical or business perspective, you attempt to play amateur psychologist.

You certainly had the option to make a positive contribution to this thread by citing all the great and wondrous events of 2012 that has caused DDO to boom with a record number of players. Not surprisingly, you opted not to go down that path.

2012 will go down as the year DDO

1) launched an ill conceived expansion that caused large numbers of veterans players to abandon the game
2) gave us an ocean of bugs, many of which still have not been resolved
3) restructured for the first time since the relaunch in fall of 2009

All in all, not a good year for a niche game that likely had little margin for error to start the year. Given all of the above, I can see why you prefer to try to make this about me.

2013 is just around the corner. It could be a very interesting year.

[zobo]

As a developer I might be able to explain the dropping of French and German translations. Many of the issues in the game are incorrect item, feat, ED descriptions... Fixing these when there are translations involved can take a while, especially when the translations are contracted out. Translations will also add a couple weeks minimum to the release of any new content since DM voice and text has to be translated. In an attempt to reduce the effect translations have on release dates, management typically tries to get developers to "lock down" the text early. This can sometimes make things worse since decisions have to be made before they are ready to be made. It also makes it difficult to time the voice with animations when you have multiple languages - think Ana/Lolth conversation at end of CITW. So while dropping translations may help the bottom line, it should also improve but fixes, new content quality and release dates.

[yawumpus]

I can agree with "bad design, maybe some poor hiring decisions, maybe poort project management".

Its also a sign that they lack some combo of

1) technical skill
2) the financial ability to hire the needed technical skill
3) the confidence that the game will be around long enough to merit the expense of hiring the needed technical skill

In a game that derives revenue from selling new content, new content will be around right up to the point where the games goes on auto pilot to milk the last few dollars of revenue from the truly addicted.

The best indicator of the health of a game running on a micro transaction model is the quality of software infrastructure. In generates no direct revenue, but is the key enabler for the long term future of the game. Unfortunately, MadFloyd's remarks says it all.

While I had no confidence in the pre-MOTU codebase, the entire development process of the expansion showed an absolute willingness to sacrifice any form of viability it ever had. The effects of "throw developers at a project to meet arbitrary fixed deadlines" have been known since 1975 (http://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineering-Anniversary/dp/0201835959) and haven't changed at all.

This had no relation to the technical skill of devs working for Turbine before or after the project, it was purely a choice by management to run the expansion project the way they did. They choose to rake in the expansion money over the summer at the expense of a permanently buggy code for the rest of its existence. To claim there is a choice between selling ever more buggy updates or running an equally expensive (but longer lasting) project refactoring and debugging the entire codebase is a joke when considering both Turbine's and Warner's histories. Pack a greater vermin bane weapon at all times or find a different MMO.

I can only hope that the forums will try to police their own members enough to prevent devs from shutting out all player input. Trying to create content at the pace Turbine/Warner demands is hard enough, but constantly being told how trivial it must be to somehow tease a rotten codebase into performing miracles (without bugs) is going to simply drive them away and only listen to inhouse (and inadequate) testing.

[MultiFaceted]

It reminds me at those news saying "Fidel Castro is dying".

Some day they will be right.

Come on now... the media in general are very good at prediction. They have accurately predicted 93 of the last 4 depressions...

[MsEricka]

Vague, incomplete, lacking references, filled with speculation.

That's why the writer is on a personal blog and not writing for a real gaming site. This "article" is trash.

[Ryiah]

The localization thing bugs me, because localization is a low cost for high return.

You might be underestimating the costs involved. It isn't simply a matter of translating the text. You also have to ensure your codebase is capable of handling it. If it can't, you need to code in that functionality and then test it. You may need additional people to handle support, the website, the forums, etc.

Plus there is no guarantee you are actually getting a high return. It may have not been worth it.

[Ganak]

I think the wildcard is the loyalty of so many to the D&D brand.


Anecdotally, I see populations on my server as solid as ever, and way better than at many times in the past.

I get the removal of translation as the German server failed to achieve the numbers to be profitable.

The layoffs were very concerning; but no hard facts as to why? Could be a restructuring beneficial to the long term profitibility or a sign of trouble.

Another wildcard is the release of "The Hobbit" trilogy over the next three years, which will keep the Tolken franchise in the limelight. On the LOTR side of the house, they would be wise to take advantage of this, and this would be good for Turbine which is good for DDO.

There have always been naysayers on the DDO forums.

I can easily see this game continue 2-5+ years. There may be a point where a DDO2 launch is necessary. I'll be so bold to say there will be D&D games of varying types perhaps for the lifetime of everyone who plays now and beyond due to brand loyalty.

The death strike for DDO I surmise may be competition from other D&D games. I've heard of this new MMO one coming and will be watching intently.

[MRMechMan]

Speculation. No proof either way.

Speculation. No documented proof.

Irrelevant to company success. You find me a code monkey who doesn't b**ch about a legacy system/code and I'll buy you a rolex.

Completely speculative. Remove the forum posts from people who say they no longer play DDO (which are almost universally negative) and I see no evidence of 'growing' negativity. The majority of the complaints I see here are from self-described former players. (And for the record, didn't you recently state you no longer play DDO?)



1. Player counts are absolutely, way down. Anyone who plays can see that. Unless you chose to ignore it. Like you.

2. The xpac gave a lot of players tons of extra TP, and a lot of people I know are not buying/using TP anymore. Others are not buying out of principle, or because they are playing less, etc. Just my observations. Perhaps you have other ones. But most people I have talked to are buying/using less TP.

3. How is the code irrelevent to company success?

4. Speculative, speculative...right, we get it, you like that word. But, again, anyone who spends time on the forums over the years can probably see the growing negativity. Unless, of course, they chose to ignore it like you. I don't think forum negativity is a big deal in general as an indicator of game success. But it is there and ignoring it is silly.

[Postumus]

1. Player counts are absolutely, way down. Anyone who plays can see that. Unless you chose to ignore it. Like you.

1- Absolutely down, eh? By how much? How many active accounts were there in 2011? How many now? Please show me the verifiable data I am ignoring. Not hunches, not "well my guild blah blah" or "my friends blah blah," actual published information.


2- Overall MMO player counts are down across the industry and so is average player spending for MMOs (for instance one article I read state that in 2012 in the US spending per player went from an average of $27/month to $17/month).


3- Down does not equal dying. LOTRO has been rated in the top 5 MMOs of 2012 in several publications and in terms of new product it has had more updates and new content in 2012 than WoW.

Likewise DDO has had several updates including the MoTU expansion in 2012. Everything I can find on the net published by actual creditable sources (or at least fairly objective sources) indicates DDO has had more sales this year, and has spent more money on the game, than in the last couple of years; and it appears 2012 was a good year for Turbine - especially when compared to the rest of the pre-existing MMOs.




4. Speculative, speculative...right, we get it, you like that word. But, again, anyone who spends time on the forums over the years can probably see the growing negativity. Unless, of course, they chose to ignore it like you. I don't think forum negativity is a big deal in general as an indicator of game success. But it is there and ignoring it is silly.


OR, perhaps you are giving more weight to negative posts in the forums than positive ones simply because of your own bias. It's called anchoring. From where I sit the forums have always been pretty negative with doom threads posted daily since the first day I logged on. I honestly don't know if the percentage of negative posts are greater or fewer in 2012 than in 2011 or in 2010, but I won't hazard a guess on a trend because that would be silly to do without any actual data.


In a nutshell, I think, based on what I have read in publications OUTSIDE the forums, that the forum posts reporting DDO's (and Turbine's) demise are most likely just a population of embittered players (many of which have admitted they don't even play any more) who are dissatisfied with elements of the game and who conclude that if they and their friends don't like DDO anymore, then no one else should either and the game is dying.


Show me some actual data otherwise and I'll be happy to say "you were right."

[Postumus]

3. How is the code irrelevent to company success?



This is what happens when people take quotes out of context. I never said 'code is irrelevant to company success.' I was replying to this quote:


3) MadFloyd has admitted that the code base is nothing more than a pile of spaghetti


Paraphrasing a dev comment about the code is in no way an indicator of Turbine's or DDO's success. It's a comment about the code. That is all. And that's why I said this point was irrelevant. To try to extrapolate something about the overall viability of the game from a comment like that is ridiculous.

[Eladiun]

You might be underestimating the costs involved. It isn't simply a matter of translating the text. You also have to ensure your codebase is capable of handling it. If it can't, you need to code in that functionality and then test it.

They went through that effort years back with a major effort to support localization. As the poster said it's a simple as translating the text and entering it in the appropriate resource files.

[Arty_Farty]

They went through that effort years back with a major effort to support localization. As the poster said it's a simple as translating the text and entering it in the appropriate resource files.

To be honest you can probably skip the translation stage, just copy and paste "*STRING TABLE ERROR*" a thousand times and you are done.

[Xynot2]

Typical blog. Says the obvious:

1) The company has never given us any hard facts about their long term profitability
2) The company could be doing great, but we don't know
3) The company could be about to fail, but we don't know

Especially since the guy said he doesn't play much.

To the OP- Since the guy admits he doesn't play much, I wouldn't put much stock in his story.

Oh and ...


DOOOOOOOOM!