EA Closes One BioWare/Pandemic Studio

[Mamoulian War]

"You know that 80-90% of ME Xbox sales was before Bio was bought up right?"

 

Doesn't matter. BIO's profit is EA's profit. The moment EA purchased BIO they got all monies, properties, and everything else including the company toilet paper.

 

 

"Apparently not always."

 

Nowhere in your link does it state that the game in question didn't break even or make a profit. Just that it didn't meet (the very likely super high) expectations. TWO hugely different things. A series like Tomb Raider is likely expected to sell more is all.

 

 

P.S. Marketing at 1 mil is probably higher than most games get for sure. And, $25mil is probably at the high end of devlopmental costs too. I have a hard time believing that game would cost $100mil to make so if that's what GTA4 cost to make, WOW! I'll have to play it just to see what a $100mil game looks and plays like. L0L

 

1 million marketing costs are not very much over the top (do not forget about the world outside USA, where you have to pay for marketing stuff aswell)... compared to left 4 dead its nothing...

 

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/42138/Le...ion-Ad-Campaign

[Maria Caliban]

Ah, another great example how publisher like to screw around. They sell 1,5 million units, and as a result they lay off 30 people plus want to make Lara now attractive to girl gamers. Great thinking!

 

Lara has always been attractive to girl gamers.

 

If you're talking about the 'realistic proportions' some people claim Lara now has... Well, I assume those people are all male.

[Volourn]

The vast majority of games don't get television marketing which is probably the most expensive type. Even many supposed AAA titles don't get that, and even when they do like JE or ME for BIO; it's very limited. Still, no doubt, that games are getting pushed into more epxensive types of advertisement compared to before so times are a changing.

[Mamoulian War]

The vast majority of games don't get television marketing which is probably the most expensive type. Even many supposed AAA titles don't get that, and even when they do like JE or ME for BIO; it's very limited. Still, no doubt, that games are getting pushed into more epxensive types of advertisement compared to before so times are a changing.

 

if i do remember correctly i seen lot of ME ads in german comercial TVs in prime time when it was released.. and that is pretty expensive

Edited January 15, 2009 by Mamoulian War

[Nightshape]

Edit: OK, I'll take your word for 2.5 million, but I noticed the price was cut pretty quickly after release, so a lot of those probably weren't even at full price.

I remember that MS announced in Dezember 2007 that ME sold 1,6 million units worldwide, but by now it's about 2,5 million units. So yeah, probably not all units were sold for full price. But I still think both MS and Bioware were very pleased with the performance, otherwise we wouldn't see the trilogy get done.

 

Doesn't really matter what price a retailer shifts a game for... A shipped unit is a shipped unit pretty much, the retailer can sell it for whatever they want "Technically"

[Nightshape]

I don't think ME did near as well as expected. They probably broke even, but that's about it. Compare their numbers to Assassin's Creed, which came out at the same time, AC probably did at least twice the business. Also Bio didn't get married, they got bought. They don't exist as a legal entity.

ME sold 2,5 million units on the 360 alone. Add the PC sales, and you have 3 million. Now don't tell me those aren't good numbers.

 

you do know that EA has not seen a single dime from the Xbox release? so if they even sold 500k (which i realy doubt) ME PC that is for EA surely disapointing release...

Boy, you really have some nerve.

 

ME (PC) was the deal for EA! Just imagine, they only had to spend money for the conversion!

 

You're right, it's a pretty killer profit.

[Nightshape]

"You know that 80-90% of ME Xbox sales was before Bio was bought up right?"

 

Doesn't matter. BIO's profit is EA's profit. The moment EA purchased BIO they got all monies, properties, and everything else including the company toilet paper.

 

 

"Apparently not always."

 

Nowhere in your link does it state that the game in question didn't break even or make a profit. Just that it didn't meet (the very likely super high) expectations. TWO hugely different things. A series like Tomb Raider is likely expected to sell more is all.

 

 

P.S. Marketing at 1 mil is probably higher than most games get for sure. And, $25mil is probably at the high end of devlopmental costs too. I have a hard time believing that game would cost $100mil to make so if that's what GTA4 cost to make, WOW! I'll have to play it just to see what a $100mil game looks and plays like. L0L

 

That's not so foolish.

 

Burnout Paradise - 42 MILLION!

 

GTA IV is larger more ambitious etc... Yeah sounds about right.

[Dark_Raven]

No surprise. EA gets its filthy hands on this company and it starts to go to hell. LOLZ

[alanschu]

"You know that 80-90% of ME Xbox sales was before Bio was bought up right?"

 

Doesn't matter. BIO's profit is EA's profit. The moment EA purchased BIO they got all monies, properties, and everything else including the company toilet paper.

 

 

"Apparently not always."

 

Nowhere in your link does it state that the game in question didn't break even or make a profit. Just that it didn't meet (the very likely super high) expectations. TWO hugely different things. A series like Tomb Raider is likely expected to sell more is all.

 

 

P.S. Marketing at 1 mil is probably higher than most games get for sure. And, $25mil is probably at the high end of devlopmental costs too. I have a hard time believing that game would cost $100mil to make so if that's what GTA4 cost to make, WOW! I'll have to play it just to see what a $100mil game looks and plays like. L0L

 

1 million marketing costs are not very much over the top (do not forget about the world outside USA, where you have to pay for marketing stuff aswell)... compared to left 4 dead its nothing...

 

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/42138/Le...ion-Ad-Campaign

 

 

Sorry, I'm missing where you validate your cost estimates. You pointed out an advertising campaign that was deemed unusual enough to be news worthy, but I still fail to see where you've pulled any of your numbers from.

[Nightshape]

http://www.kotaku.com.au/games/2009/01/how..._nightmare.html

 

Interesting article.

[Maria Caliban]

http://www.kotaku.com.au/games/2009/01/how..._nightmare.html

 

Interesting article.

 

That pop-up in the lower left-hand corner is very annoying. I soon expect a return of the <blink> tag in html, as even 'professional' websites have decided that the porn sites of the 90s strategy of so-much-blinking-****-the-viewer-can't-look-at-the-actual-page was brilliant design.

[Nightshape]

http://www.kotaku.com.au/games/2009/01/how..._nightmare.html

 

Interesting article.

 

That pop-up in the lower left-hand corner is very annoying. I soon expect a return of the <blink> tag in html, as even 'professional' websites have decided that the porn sites of the 90s strategy of so-much-blinking-****-the-viewer-can't-look-at-the-actual-page was brilliant design.

 

I have no clue what you're talking about, clearly I read the article and stared at nothing else.

[Humodour]

Doesn't WoW make something like $100 million each month?

 

Or was it only $10 million?

 

Well they've got about 10 million active players. Say it costs $10 a month. $10*10 million = $100 million a month.

 

Not bad, Blizzard. So EA/Bioware would want to make $33 million a month to pay it off in two years. You could do that 2 to 4 million subscribers. They don't need to beat WoW, or even match it.

Edited January 18, 2009 by Krezack

[Volourn]

You are forgeting that it does cost money to keep the servers open plus everything else so it's not $10mil profit.

[Monte Carlo]

FWIW, I owned both Full Spectrum Warrior and Mercenaries on the Xbox.

 

FSW: Extremely ambitious, polished, good-looking squad-based shooter that was perhaps too war-gamish for a console title. I loved it.

 

Mercenaries: Sand-box action shooter set in North Korea (where Morgoth, it will be remembered, got his MBA), open world, great action, nice to look at, played it for hours. The co-op was fun too, IIRC.

 

So, whatever Pandemic's sins, not making good games wasn't one of them.

 

Cheers

MC

[Morgoth]

Doesn't WoW make something like $100 million each month?

 

Or was it only $10 million?

 

Well they've got about 10 million active players. Say it costs $10 a month. $10*10 million = $100 million a month.

 

Not bad, Blizzard. So EA/Bioware would want to make $33 million a month to pay it off in two years. You could do that 2 to 4 million subscribers. They don't need to beat WoW, or even match it.

Not entirely true. They've 11,5 million active subscibers, and they charge 12.99 each month. 12.99*11,5 = ~150 million each month.

 

As for the servers. A half year ago Blizzard gave an interview and said all the support and servers etc. cost them about 200 million since 2004. So let's say 200 million in 4 years, that's 50 million a year, that's around 4,2 million a month. 150 - 4,2 and they still make 146 million profit per month.

 

I mean, NOT FRIGGIN BAD!

[Calax]

Doesn't WoW make something like $100 million each month?

 

Or was it only $10 million?

 

Well they've got about 10 million active players. Say it costs $10 a month. $10*10 million = $100 million a month.

 

Not bad, Blizzard. So EA/Bioware would want to make $33 million a month to pay it off in two years. You could do that 2 to 4 million subscribers. They don't need to beat WoW, or even match it.

Not entirely true. They've 11,5 million active subscibers, and they charge 12.99 each month. 12.99*11,5 = ~150 million each month.

 

As for the servers. A half year ago Blizzard gave an interview and said all the support and servers etc. cost them about 200 million since 2004. So let's say 200 million in 4 years, that's 50 million a year, that's around 4,2 million a month. 150 - 4,2 and they still make 146 million profit per month.

 

I mean, NOT FRIGGIN BAD!

they also have to employ 3 design teams to keep up with wow, one to fix bugs, one to create new content for the current game, and one to make the next expansion.

[Hurlshort]

They are making money hand over fist, for sure. Blizzard went from being a successful developer to being an absolute juggernaut. I'm sure that is at the back of the mind of the team working on KotOR Online, but realistically their goals are probably to compete with companies like SOE and Turbine that have had sustained success in the MMO marketplace. So far, EA has had some serious issues getting a quality MMO onto the market. WAR looks to be a modest success, so there is a start.

[Monte Carlo]

Question, from someone who has never played (nor intends to play) an MMORPG:

 

As a genre, will they at some point simply crash? Or evolve? Or, I'm wondering if they will in some strange way segue into social networking sites (etc) and turn into something none of is can quite predict or understand at the moment.

 

Cheers

MC

[Meshugger]

Ah, another great example how publisher like to screw around. They sell 1,5 million units, and as a result they lay off 30 people plus want to make Lara now attractive to girl gamers. Great thinking!

 

Lara has always been attractive to girl gamers.

 

If you're talking about the 'realistic proportions' some people claim Lara now has... Well, I assume those people are all male.

 

Guilty of that part myself. But i have standards goddammit, double D boobs aren't that hard to find on skinnier girls, you just have to look around. On the other hand, hyper-masculine games such as Gears of War have 'realistic' proportions as well; the guys look more like shaved gorillas than humans. But ofcourse, i have seen similar shaved gorillas in everyday life.

 

And about the 1.5 million sales of Tomb Raider being dissapointing, it is more or less the shareholders own fault for having ridicolous expectations. The devteam pretty much got selfowned for agreeing on such terms. Poor them.

[Hurlshort]

Question, from someone who has never played (nor intends to play) an MMORPG:

 

As a genre, will they at some point simply crash? Or evolve? Or, I'm wondering if they will in some strange way segue into social networking sites (etc) and turn into something none of is can quite predict or understand at the moment.

 

Cheers

MC

 

Will they crash?

 

That seems pretty unlikely given the current dominance. They have been pretty effective at bringing in new and casual gamers, and I'm not just talking about WoW. Everquest was a fairly large sensation in its heyday and I remember being surprised at how many girls I knew who got hooked on it. These were girls who usually only had a passing interest in a game here and there, definitely not what would be considered hardcore, but the MMO was addicting. The last couple major MMO releases have sold phenomenally well in the first month, so a slowdown doesn't seem evident yet.

 

Eventually every genre runs into bumps in the road and dry spells, but MMO's also have a lifespan that is unique to it's genre. People are still paying to play games that are 10 years old. WoW is 5 years old and still making a ton of money. The MMO genre is completely unique to the rest of gaming.

 

Will they evolve?

 

Depends on what you are looking to evolve. There are some slight variations in most MMO's on the market, but the "carrot on the stick" component is fairly important to the game design. How else will you get people to put in 100 hours a month and devote themselves entirely to your game alone for years on end?

 

But in some respects they are evolving. There is a concerted effort to bring in more casual gamers, to be more accessible to someone who has never played a game before. Also, some games have carved out a niche with unique gameplay models, EVE Online being the biggest success I can think of.

 

Will they become or replace social networking sites?

 

Sure, that seems like a pretty likely collision. It's already happening with things like Second Life, and consoles are basically providing an MMO with Sony's Home, Wii's Mii's, and Microsofts avatars. I think you will see these evolve dramatically in the next generation of consoles.

 

In many MMO's, you get a house to decorate along with your avatar. I can see that evolving into a facebook type situation where you share stuff with friends in a gameworld. I think the user customization is where you really will see an evolution down the road. You look at games like Spore where you can share creations with friends, and you can see how a progression towards more is not too far away.

[Morgoth]

I'm curious what this new Blizzard MMO will be all about. They said it will be fundamentally different from WoW, so I keep my fingers crossed. Rumors say they want to bring Starcraft Ghost back, and add a MMO component to it.

[Calax]

Question, from someone who has never played (nor intends to play) an MMORPG:

 

As a genre, will they at some point simply crash? Or evolve? Or, I'm wondering if they will in some strange way segue into social networking sites (etc) and turn into something none of is can quite predict or understand at the moment.

 

Cheers

MC

 

Will they crash?

 

That seems pretty unlikely given the current dominance. They have been pretty effective at bringing in new and casual gamers, and I'm not just talking about WoW. Everquest was a fairly large sensation in its heyday and I remember being surprised at how many girls I knew who got hooked on it. These were girls who usually only had a passing interest in a game here and there, definitely not what would be considered hardcore, but the MMO was addicting. The last couple major MMO releases have sold phenomenally well in the first month, so a slowdown doesn't seem evident yet.

 

Eventually every genre runs into bumps in the road and dry spells, but MMO's also have a lifespan that is unique to it's genre. People are still paying to play games that are 10 years old. WoW is 5 years old and still making a ton of money. The MMO genre is completely unique to the rest of gaming.

I think the MMO market has hit a minor crash where it is right now, games that might be fantastic are getting passed over because people don't want to pay a second monthly fee. I think the last two MMO releases of consequence were Age of Conan and W:AR an from what I hear Age is already starting to die off, they've shut down half their servers in order to cut costs. W:AR sounds like it's going to fair better but the jury is ultimately still out on that.

Will they evolve?

 

Depends on what you are looking to evolve. There are some slight variations in most MMO's on the market, but the "carrot on the stick" component is fairly important to the game design. How else will you get people to put in 100 hours a month and devote themselves entirely to your game alone for years on end?

 

But in some respects they are evolving. There is a concerted effort to bring in more casual gamers, to be more accessible to someone who has never played a game before. Also, some games have carved out a niche with unique gameplay models, EVE Online being the biggest success I can think of.

They are evolving but very slowly. There are niche games like EVE and COH that stray from the genre's usual ideas, but they also have alot in common with the "standard" MMO template. Real Genre pushers seem to have be squashed neath the mighty treads of WoW. Tabula Rasa sounded like it was totally different from WoW and the standard formula (with gun combat and monsters taking cities and what not) but it's since died, same with Hellgate.

Will they become or replace social networking sites?

 

Sure, that seems like a pretty likely collision. It's already happening with things like Second Life, and consoles are basically providing an MMO with Sony's Home, Wii's Mii's, and Microsofts avatars. I think you will see these evolve dramatically in the next generation of consoles.

 

In many MMO's, you get a house to decorate along with your avatar. I can see that evolving into a facebook type situation where you share stuff with friends in a gameworld. I think the user customization is where you really will see an evolution down the road. You look at games like Spore where you can share creations with friends, and you can see how a progression towards more is not too far away.

To a degree at least some of them are. WoW simply because it's so massive is a sort of social networking on a level that I've yet to see otherwise. Myspace and Facebook might be bigger than WoW but generally the entirety of the interaction on those sights is that the owner of that acct posts some pictures or thoughts and others respond. WoW by it's very nature makes you become friends with others and you have to rely upon them to get certain things done. I think WoW also forces those 12 year old "I'm da man!" kids, who do everything they can to grief others or show their superiority, to put a sock in it because their actions can actually have consequence, if they don't group well, or ninja loot usually word gets out about what they do and they have to start grouping with tools like themselves to get things done. The best part is that 90% of the tools that get themselves ostracized by the community, aren't very skilled at the game.