Laser battles with the Bane turned out to be less attractive to players than expected, apparently.
PlayNoEvil reports that NCsoft may have gotten a lot less then they bargained for with their Sci-Fi MMOG Tabula Rasa, whose projected failure to return on the initial investment has driven NCsoft's stock to an "all time low."
Big, bad news: Cho Jin-seo of The Korea Times reported today that NCSoft is downsizing its studio in Austin due to the failure of Tabula Rasa. The game is estimated to have cost 100 Billion Won (US$106 Million) over 6 years. The game earned 5 Billion Won ($5.3 Million) in 2007 and is projected to earn 15 Billion Won ($16 Million) in 2008 worldwide.
Robert Garriot has been removed from day-to-day operations at the company and Richard Garriot's focus on becoming a space tourist is highlighted - each brother was compensated with 14 Billion Won ($15 Million) in NCSoft stock when they joined the company.
NCSoft's stock hit an all time low on the announcement.
You have to feel kind of bad for Garriot... after all the work and effort to make a pretty good game (that looks gorgeous), they're falling victim to the same problem everyone else is-- overestimating interest in niche titles.
The problem is that developers are not giving gamers what they want which obviously results in financial disaster. Richard Garriot, Brad McQuaid simply have been using their iconic status to make lots of money personally. They are trying to do things differently, yet is that really what needs to happen? I say, build a sandbox MMO, and gamers will come running.
It sounds great in theory, but I am not sure a sandbox game is viable in today's market. With production costs of a quality game so high, developers must choose between skimping on something (content/graphics/stability) to please a small but dedicated crowd or adding rails to appeal to the much larger but fickle market as a whole.
Developers who take the first route land at a game that has serious problems of some kind (No quests or direction/2D sprites/instability). Those who choose the second route launch a product into a market already clogged with games just like it.
Tabula Rasa does some great new things that I expect see carry over to future titles--cloning and shooter battle mechanics come to mind immediately--but its modest launch doesn't seem to be caused by restrictive game play from what I gather. Instead, it seems that people were disappointed by lack of conventional features (extensive crafting) or conventional features that did not come out as expected (broken, class-defining skills).
You have to feel kind of bad for Garriot... after all the work and effort to make a pretty good game (that looks gorgeous), they're falling victim to the same problem everyone else is-- overestimating interest in niche titles.
"niche titles"
Im sorry but I dont know what do you mean by this.
Are you calling MMOs niche? I dont really think that they can be called that anymore, back during the EQ days probably but now they are no longer niche.
Are you calling space MMO niche?
Cause when you do a little breakdown of titles they basically break up into two categories, Fantasy and Space. Of course the number of Fantasy Titles out there compared to the Space ones is tremendous but those two are still the two major genres in the land of MMOs.
If you are talking about the game mechanics involved in the game... shame on you. The point of MMOs is innovation, i dont want, WE dont want every other MMO playing exactly the same as one before when we are paying 15 bucks a month.
what i really think happened with TR is that for some reason the game was being held up only by the name of the creator as it was developed. When talking about this game with buds a lot of them didnt even know about it. I think that NC soft just thought that every one was going to jump into this game because it was created by Richard Garriott. I'm pretty sure that at least 70% of the folks that play MMOs now have no idea who he is, putting his name on top of the title of an MMO means nothing to a lot of folks out there.
They should've really pump some cash into marketing on this thing instead of just solely let it live by the name of Richard Garriott. Anyway, the game has just been out 3 months and people are expecting what exactly? Let the game breath a little before calling it a failure. We are not talking about some Hollywood flick that has to make most of its cash within the first few weeks or its dead.
It's a tough situation. I think Aelryn does make a valid point here in the overestimating of any given title.
Let's face some facts. There are a finite amount of MMOGers out there. Like the game or not, there is a large chunk of any new MMOGers to go to something established, like World of Warcraft - simply because of its exposure.
Once introduced to MMOGs, it has been stated time and time again that nothing compares to your first MMOG. So thus, with some exceptions of course, we have most "new" players joining a pre-established game, and setting up camp there, so to speak.
There are thousands always on the lookout for something bigger and better, but the problem here is that it would take one insanely awesome game with marketing skills not yet realized by mankind to convince millions of players not only to play their game from the get-go, but to enjoy it enough that they'd subscribe to it for months or years to come.
Thus, everything produced becomes sort of a 'niche.' If you dump 106 million dollars into a game, you're going to need a huge subscriber base to cover those costs. If you don't dump 106 million dollars into a game, the game is either sub-par, or unfinished, or both.
So what do you do? Bet the farm on your game blowing everyone away, or approach it modestly in hopes that its popularity will grow, thus giving more resources for future improvements?
__________________ benjamin j. de la durantaye
"machail"
Executive Editor
TenTonHammer http://www.tentonhammer.com
It sounds great in theory, but I am not sure a sandbox game is viable in today's market. With production costs of a quality game so high, developers must choose between skimping on something (content/graphics/stability) to please a small but dedicated crowd or adding rails to appeal to the much larger but fickle market as a whole.
I unfortunately had to call shenanigans (oh yes...I did) on quite a bit of the article. They leave out too many pivotal facts to mention, for example the South Korean stock index has plummeted 16% since Christmas which might explain why they haven't been able to at least maintain.
I know not only the TR Community Manager said to take it with a grain of salt, but Massively pointed out some inaccuracies as well.
NCsoft Runs into Some Serious Tabula Rasa Trouble
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