Please, no more Free Realms “analyzing.”
It will do none of us any good to read another blog about how you don’t get if Free Realms should be considered a success or not, being that they hit 2 million users recently. It will not serve any purpose to over-analyze the quests or mini-games.
And for all that is good, saying that it’s “not for you” has nothing to do with the thousands and thousands that might be playing it.
Stop thinking so hard. It’s a game, and a fun one. It might be deeper to some, sillier to others and amazing to who knows who. Is the gaming world so boring to you now that you want to poke and prod a game designed for PRE-TEENS?
Let it be, just take your blog and your podcasts and just let it be played. Jesus.
Talking like it’s Quantum Physics or something. For shit’s sake, it’s got “robgoblins” in it.
Beau
All the cool kids have already finished it anyway: http://freerealmsforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1994
(And I’m still not sure whether it’s sad or hilarious)
Yeh, I am kind of addressing some very specific dozen or podcasters/bloggers that I read every week.
a) I know they don’t like SOE. After all, they post about it. So, they take it to mean that Free Realms must be hated, too.
b) Even 10 percent of 2 million PAYING players is still a ton, especially when you think that of some of those 10 percent there would be adults like myself spending 50 or 100 dollars in it.
c) You can tell the bloggers/podcasters that simply want the game to do poorly. They really can’t explain why they’re even angry at SOE anymore, but they just would rather it do poorly.
All those people are idiots. It’s like their attempting to over-analyze JOY or FUN.
Christ, I hate blogging/podcasting sometime! lol
Beau
For me at least, the whole “2 million downloads” thing is just as funny as Turbine and their 4 million characters created. It’s a worthless statistic created to get a “Hey look at me” press release.
More people download tiny free apps they ‘might’ be mildly interested in today than a few years ago, news at 11. Release profit numbers, or overall user usage, or anything that can be logically connected to ‘people are actually playing longer than the time to download’, but stop with the ‘look at me’ stuff.
A-freaking-men.
Syn:
Before I explain why it is important, and actually quite normal, that SOE has proclaimed (proudly) the “2 million mark”, you can explain to me why you display how many “hits” you get on your website.
I’ll wait.
Now, let’s take you and your site as an example. You are proud of your hits, despite the fact that you are not saying how many of those hits are unique visitors, how many are bots/spiders/re-links, and how many of those IP’s come back often.
If you were to suddenly receive 2 million hits within a month period, you would not only blog about it, but proclaim it in a widget for all to see. And to think, you aren’t even selling advertising! Now take those 2 million people, and let’s be REAL conservative, and say that 10 percent of them spend anywhere from 10-200 dollars in your “Hard-Core Cash-Shop.” Do the math, and tell me if you would NOT only brag about those numbers, but see that as a pretty successful attempt. All this within the first month of your games existence! Add that up over the next two years, and factor in the addictive and super-ass fun quality of a cash shop, and you’ve not only proven my point about why it is normal to be proud of “2 million” but you have knocked out the theory that cash shop games are crap AND can’t be making money.
And no, we are not taking into account production costs..we all know SOE has that covered, has HAD that covered for games that didn’t do as well, and will continue to have that covered thanks to things like the Station Pass, new games, and being owned by one of the largest corporations in the world.
So, why are YOU asking people to “look at you?”
Beau
Are you honestly trying to connect a non-profit counter to one based around a business? I know you love to make apples to oranges comparisons, but even this one is a stretch for you.
But just to play along, here goes. Blog hits is ALL a free blog tracks. IF I had ads on the site, I would track the amount of money made, because then that would be the point, and the number of hits would be meaningless if they did not lead to profit. (And just as an aside, I have the widget because ‘I’ like looking at it. If I really wanted to impress random people on the internet with my traffic, I would just rig a tracker to show 10 million hits)
That’s what FR and SOE are missing. The number of people to GLANCE at your game is meaningless, especially now since everyone has fast internet and is willing to give something 5 minutes of their time when it’s free and mass advertised.
You assume FR has already translated those 2 million to 10% paying (and 10% is far from conservative), and at a high pay rate at that. But without knowing that, it’s just a guess. For all we know, all but 10k of that 2m never logged back in after the first 5 minutes, or all but 5k are just playing the F2P content.
Since you play so many F2P games, you should know who usually spends the most cash in the shop, and who those shops are based around. Now unless I missed it, FR does not cater to the hardcore competitive PvP crowd, so who exactly is going to go crazy and drop $200 month per month to stay on top in FR? We both know the randoms who spend $2 once on Fluffy the pink poodle don’t drive the F2P market.
Will FR make SOE money, maybe. LotRO makes Turbine money, but that does not change the fact that announcing 4 million characters created was a stupid PR mistake, and they never did it again. This is now twice that SOE has made a ‘look at me’ announcement using pointless data.
First of all, I am pointing to your example to answer the question: why would SOE “brag” about 2 million (whatever)? You didn’t (truthfully) answer why YOU have your number counter on your site. See, you won’t just come out and say that you want people to see that number and be impressed. You mean for me to believe that you have it in public view, because YOU like looking at it? (You mean your blog stats aren’t good enough, right? You don’t need all that DETAIL, you just want one number?)
Look man, there’s nothing wrong with showing how many hits you have (granted, I don’t do it) and there is nothing wrong with SOE simply BRAGGING about how many players, downloads, hits or whatever, they have.
You seem to think that SOE is some version of SkyNet, not ran by humans with emotions, but ran by one giant hive mind. You DO admit (I hope to Dog you do) that there are real people, working REALLY hard to bring out a game like Free Realms? (Step outside your hate, young one.)
See the connection? You are bragging about numbers (or attempting to) and yet SOE cannot? You can be proud and hide the details of your numbers, yet they cannot, even if just for the fact that it’s impressive?
Also, since I DO play that many F2P games, I know that most of the largest developers ( the 6 or 7 I have seen comment on actual numbers) admit that most players do not spend money in the cash shops, but those that do spend enough to make up for it. That’s why the F2P model is making SO much money. If you do not know that, you need to step outside of the one game you play once in a while. Trust me, money is being made, I have heard about it with my own ears. And do you SERIOUSLY think that the only players that spend money in cash shops do so to get an advantage in PVP?
Holy crap, man. Seriously. If you think that fluffy pink dresses, mounts and pets do not sell, you have just answered the question: how many F2P games has Syn ACTUALLY played?
I am not assuming that that 10 percent is payING, I meant (if I did not say it) that they have already PAID, and others will probably continue to pay something similar. I didn’t make these figures up…look up Perfect World Intl, and see how much they are making…look up Nexon and Maple Story.
And please man, do not bring up LotRO if you are trying to point out anything UN successful. Obviously, their announcement of 4 million characters has not hurt them. If anything, let’s take a look at your current favorite game and see where THEY are at in a few years for an example of something gone wrong.
I just seriously don’t get how blind you are. You honestly have no idea how 2 million (that’s in 2 months) of practically ANYTHING can equal some kind of success for a company? You are not even touching on the ACTUAL subs they do have, the merchandising, the tie-ins with Blockbuster, Target…damn, man. Get your head out of the hard-core.
Now, before anyone says it, I am in no way saying that SOE is making the most money of their lives off of Free Realms. I am simply addressing bloggers like Syn that (although he DOES do it with some gusto!) will over-analyze not only the marketing and business decisions of a company like SOE (who has been doing it longer than pretty much anyone) but will also over-analyze and find the negative in a game filled with faeries and rob-goblins. At the least, these type of bloggers are good at thinking that somehow they know more about the business than say, the businesses do.
My bet is that they are just like me though: some douche bag with a blog. Well, I got a podcast, too. One point.
Beau
Again,if the counter was to brag about my numbers, I would simply inflate it to 10mil. Who is going to be impressed that a site has 300k hits? I told you why I have that widget, I like to look at it once in a while when I log in to manage the site, and it’s an easy quick reference (without it I would not have noticed I broke 300k for instance). I look at the stats page on wordpress, but I don’t use that page to see total hits. But again, my blog is a non-profit thing I do to kill time at work, which is not comparable to a company trying to turn a profit and keeps it public image up. (something SOE needs help with anyway)
You argue that it did not hurt Turbine, but have they released something like that since? Surely the game by now has had 10m characters created, where is the press release to boost their image? Or perhaps did they get more crap than praise over the release, and smartly decided to keep meaningless milestones to themselves?
The fluff crap in a F2P store sells, sure, but the major buyers in traditional F2P games are indeed driven by PvP. I don’t have the link, but there was a good article about the asian F2P market a while back, that broke down the structure and the ‘why’ behind it. You really think a large chunk of the paying market is going to get hooked on buying a new dress for $200 a month consistently, or trying to stay near the top in power? Which is more likely to get people to shell out money consistently and at a high level. Look at the average F2P game, what’s the ‘end game’?
2 million of anything is impressive huh… like the countless iPhone apps being downloaded in far larger numbers? Should they all give us a million by million update on how many free downloads they have? Apple did it for 1 BILLION, which is significant, but 1m these days is nothing when it’s free and takes 5 minutes, especially when you spend as much to market it.
Again, let them release something with meaning (profit margin, total subs, total money spent on stuff), but it’s just a laughing point when you go out of your way to press release a mean-nothing number like free downloads or characters created. As with Turbine, I simply pointed that out.
a) Your numbers being shown on your blog: Fine. You do it for your benefit only, I don’t care, but you have convinced me that you would rather see one chunky, inaccurate number rather than a detailed breakdown that takes 5 seconds to see. THAT makes sense.
Just as you are defending your choice to show them, you should give two seconds of thought to the simple possibility that SOE’s announcement was not only a “PR move” but an attempt to be PROUD.
Who would be impressed by YOUR numbers? I have no idea, but you are the one showing them, not me.
b) Turbines success: Yes, since they haven’t released anything means that they are failing. More insight from you, some dude with a blog. Guys like you have been going after companies for a long, long time..predicting down-falls so long that when one does have issues (due to natural causes) you can claim that you were right.
Where did they get this “crap” from? Bloggers? Podcasters? Do you really think they pay attention to some 19 year old on MMORPG.com starting a thread called “Turbine FAILS!”? Where do you get this insight?
If you took away everything and let Turbine keep LotRO, they should still not be dismissed.
c) I didn’t say that everyone was spending 200 dollars each, a month, on fluffy pink items like dresses. I said people can easily spend between 50-200 dollars on items that range from fluff to weapons to potions. I didn’t say that was per month, per player paying those amounts. Even just taking 10 percent of 2 mil (200k) and saying that they each spent 15 dollars in 2 months, that’s nothing to sneeze at. You might think that no one is paying anything, but you are wrong. Even all the bloggers in our lil circle have been paying for the monthly sub, at least. Tobold spent 100 bucks..Shut spent 50 or 100. I just spent another 20 in Mabinogi.
Here’s a small snippet about Kart Rider:
” BusinessWeek even cites a 9-year-old who paid $2.50 for a new avatar, $3.50 for a faster car, $2.50 for goggles that prevent smoke from blocking your vision while racing, and more. To a total tune of $150 USD.
But it’s more amazing than that: there are now professional Kart Rider racers who are paid by sponsors to have company logos on the side of their little Karts. A true 21st century job if I’ve heard of one.
One of the secrets of Kart Rider is that it’s also a short game, perfect for a 5-10 minute break at work or as a break from a more demanding task. Compare that to the weeks or months of a full Everquest campaign or any of the other massively multiplayer worlds. Certainly Nexon knows quite well that there are manyfold more casual gamers and people online seeking a quick entertainment that’s fun, funny and not particularly demanding. And, with an income last year of $110 million and a projected 2005 revenue of $250 million, they’re right.”
Technically, Kart Rider is PvP! So let’s find a snippet about another game:
“South Korea-based Nexon was formed in 1994, but Nexon’s American publishing arm wasn’t established until 2005. The branch’s first title was MapleStory, an MMO game that has over 2 million registered users in North America after less than a year. Globally, there are 40 million registered users.
MapleStory relies on microtransactions where players can buy in-game items. The game brings in about $16 million per month, according to Kim. Nexon’s revenues hit $230 million in 2005 with net profits of $75 million, driven by in-game item sales. There is no charge to download or play the base MapleStory game, but you can buy new content to enhance the experience.”
There’s more modern figures that are even more impressive..sorry I spent only a few seconds on Google.
I am not saying that PvP items do not sell and are not, indeed, some games biggest sellers, but it depends on the game. Mabinogi, DOMO, Perfect World, Ether Saga, Anarchy Online and many, many others are far from pvp-centric games and sell mostly potions, weapons, mounts and fluff. I am not going to argue this one with you. You are one of those guys that is stuck applying tired MMO rules to the way that games are starting to be run now.
I get that you will not be impressed with 2 million whatever’s from SOE. I get that you think they have a bad public image, despite the fact that they are probably the second most successful NA MMO developer, have been doing it for 10 years, and are still coming out with games while running what, 12 other games at the same time? I have a feeling that you are visiting blogs and reading about this bad “public image” without ever actually talking to anyone from the company. That’s a novel idea, isn’t it?
Strange to think that while this bad public image is going on, people are still buying their products and they are still making money. Don’t tell me, you weren’t one of those “Boycott SOE” guys were you?
You have only proven my point: you have consistently over-analyzed and thought too much about an announcement from a game company. You seem to think that Free Realms is NOT doing good, or was NOT a good launch.
No matter what you say, you will not convince me that this is not another case (as with your obsession with Blizzard) of you having something against a game company, a maker of imaginary worlds.
If you notice, by the way, I am not saying anything about the success or lack of success of anything. I am an adult, and an adult knows that a company that is making something as easily obtainable as MMO’s could not stay open for 10 years without doing pretty good. Even if they were to end all operations tomorrow, the project would have been considered a big success.
You know as well as I that even if they released actual numbers, you would dissect them until you found something that seemed to say they were not doing well.
Beau
Point A: I do both? I like the counter for a quick glance, I like the stats page for depth. It was a bad example to use, lets move on.
I’m glad SOE is ‘proud’ of having a free app downloaded 2m times after heavy marketing. I would rather my company be proud of profits rather than pointless statistics, but to each his own.
“Yes, since they haven’t released anything means that they are failing” – Bad leap of logic on your part. I’m not arguing LotRO is a success (it is), I’m simply pointing out to you that they made one foolish press release (# characters), got flak for it, and never did it again. If they saw any value in pointless statistics, they would have already announced 10m characters or how many times users have downloaded their free trial. Connect the dots on why they only did it once, especially with an arbitrary number like 4m…
The KartRider example proves my point, not yours. It’s high-end PvP driven by the dedicated few looking to remain on top, which support the countless freeloaders. That’s exactly the model for success in the F2P market, and every F2P clone aims to cultivate that high-end crowd. You think KartRider would ever trade its top 1000 players for 2 million of FR’s players?
Only game I’ve played from your list is AO, which is EXACTLY the type of PvP-focused game I’m talking about. Who do you think buys 90% of the stuff in the shop in AO, Joe Non-factor who is going to play for a few hours, or the top clans trying to maintain server domination? Like KartRider, it’s the EXACT SAME FORMULA.
SOE made a simple (and stupid) announcement, I made a post about it, and you made a post about that post (and others). Not much over-analyzing really, nor anything to do with how well FR is doing (since SOE has yet to actually provide any useful data on that end) You are trying really hard to find where I said FR is a failure (like you tried with LotRO earlier), yet that’s not the point at all. (Nor is there a ton of value in debating whether the press release was smart/stupid, but it’s a slow Friday here at work for me, and I like to debate just to debate)
Dude, don’t make me find 3 katrillion examples of non-pvp games making mint. That was the first Nexon game example I grabbed, and it would only be considered PvP because you are racing. It took 5 seconds to grab. I can promise you I can find more examples of non-pvp games making cash than pvp games.
Point being, cash shops make tons. SOE knows this. If you were involved with anything 2 million, you would be putting out a press release, too.
Beau
Beau, I don’t think that just because Free Realms is targets at a different audience means that should be off limits. If anything, I think this is an oppotunity for bloggers to expand their horizons a little. If there is a problem, I see it as bloggers being unequiped to analyze a game properly. Most of us are amateurs and need to give and receive constructive criticism instead of rants.
Oh, I agree that players and bloggers should analyze it to their hearts content. I was mainly talking to people that look it as though it is just another MMO. This would be like if I did an in-depth analysis of Hello Kitty Online.
Granted, I of all people can find the “deep” within any issue, but I was specifically targeting certain bloggers/podcasters/players that I had actually witnessed putting out confused opinions. When I found about the 12th confused blogger, I put out this small rant. By confused, I mean players and bloggers that were pissed that it was “grindy” or lacked quest depth.
This anger from a game that was meant for tweens. That’s like cutting apart the plot of Twilight! lol
Honestly, it was this one guy that really broke my back..he acted as though the game attempted to gain his attention, a middle aged dude that liked raiding. While I love Free Realms, I also accept it as the “younger audience” game that it is. That’s not saying it can’t be enjoyed by all.
Great, I tell people in a half smart-assed post to stop over thinking, and here we are discussin’ it! AHHH!
Beau