“Predictable in Hindsight”

Concerning the demise of All Points Bulletin:
Blogger pundit points are awarded only if you said at the start something like, “this game is doomed,” “this will never work,” or “this game will not last a year.” Shall we say within 30 days of launch, with greater points for saying it before launch? No points are awarded for negative comments that could be vaguely interpreted as a prediction of demise.

Of course, if you are taking points for this one, you must also take all the games where you said something similar and subtract points for each one that is still going. I expect to find few predictions that APB would announce is cancellation within 3 months, that WWII Online would still be going today, or that Asheron’s Call would still be live 11 years later while AC2 barely made it 3 years. You can check your own pundit score on the effect of NGE on SWG (still live!).

: Zubon

19 thoughts on ““Predictable in Hindsight””

  1. I think you lost me. Are we talking about APB or LotRO? I guess it doesn’t matter since I was spot on with both, right?

  2. Does SWG really count against pundit points though? The game took a nosedive after NGE released, and is arguably still live only through SOE’s subsidization of it through Station Pass.

  3. Yeah but Zubon, Keen is completely incapable of being objective about any free to play model after he got so badly burnt on Allods.

    1. Why do people say that? I’ve been vehemently against free to play games well before Allods. I just didn’t turn on Allods until it revealed its true cash shop ways — I made the mistake of hoping that giving it the benefit of the doubt wouldn’t have been in error.

    2. So actually, if you think about it hard enough, I was objective with Allods Online. I said “they can’t all be bad, right?” and “The gameplay is fun enough… if they add a cash shop that doesn’t instantly make it bad, right?”

      My objectivity burned me. Never again.

      1. I’m not a troll.

        Keen really got burnt on Allods and now refuses to be objective at all about any F2P model for any MMO.

        Despite it working awesomely for DDO, despite it appearing to also be fine for LotRO (http://biobreak.wordpress.com/2010/09/17/hobbits-on-the-menu/)

        That is why you really can’t quote him on anything to do with a F2P model for a game; he refuses to see that sometimes it works just fine for everyone involved (developers, old players and new players) and instead just rants constantly about it destroying and dooming games (in the case of LotRO despite him having NEVER played the game). Even a broken clock is right 2 times a day.

        2. Quick, exclude DDO and LOTRO. Name a game designed from the ground up to be F2P where it works awesomely, has no adverse gameplay effects, and has a large population.

          Allods is more a rule than an exception. That’s why the players who actually played Gpotato games like FlyFF were warning people about cash shop prices.

          1. How is Runes of Magic going? I haven’t really followed it, but I believe that it fits most of your criteria and last I heard (which was a while ago) it was still going fairly well.

            Puzzle Pirates may also fit in there (though I am uncertain if that was designed from the ground up as F2P).

            I agree regarding Allods, and could see a mile off that the prices were going to be excessive as they had no other way of getting your money. However that just indicates that that model of F2P is crappy. Not that all models are crappy.

            1. Puzzle Pirates was initially a sub game, but the microtransaction servers were designed as different servers with different economies. The MT servers have since proven more successful, though both styles have maintained relatively healthy populations. Players choose which pricing system they like but play the same game… imagine that.

              Wizard 101 has happily chugged along offering both subs and MT pricing on the same servers from day one, complete with the ability to swap servers every 60 seconds for free. It’s working just fine for them.

          2. Maple Story is big, especially in Asia.

            Kingdom of Loathing is browser-based and I believe started off free before they put in monthly $10 ‘donation’ items as a bonus for folks who wanted to support the game’s development. They also put in hardcore mode where those items don’t work, so as to still provide a fair playing field to players who don’t pay.

            9Dragons’ Facebook page has about 2,200 subscribers, and going by an unscientific 10% approximation, that’s perhaps 20k players. How do you define large population anyhow, and is that a measure of success?

            A Tale in the Desert is based on monthly subscription, and has a niche audience of maybe 2000 subscribers at best. Still doing fine as an MMO.

            The three above (excluding ATITD) are designed from the ground up F2P. Works awesomely enough that they have their own population/community and are still running and making their designers money.

            Adverse gameplay effects is extremely subjective, though.

            Some folks cannot tolerate the thought that someone else paid real money for a perceived benefit – including vanity cosmetic items, that impinges on the quality of their game experience because omg, other people have it and they don’t… at which point, they will only be satisfied with a communist style one-price-fits-all subscription.

  5. Song7,

    Sure. Keen is simply flat out wrong on this, and mistakes *his* opinion of ‘I hate FTP’ for an objective fact ‘FTP is a great way to turn on the newbie fire hose and get more subscribers’.

    While the newbie fire hose is on, you can also *make money* developing new content to sell them. And when I say ‘new content’, I mean stuff they play through – stuff like the regular new, for-sale-to-FTP types DDO is consistently releasing.

    There’s an argument whether the Turbine model of gate content and sell expansion packs or the SOE model of gate equipment and skills is the way to go, but FTP simply works, and none of Keen’s ranting, trolling or throwing his toys out of his cot will change that.

  6. Remember to play nice. Keen is one of our friends, even if there are arguments to be had. I cited him specifically because he had the dignity to make a solid and specific “DOOM!” claim, rather than something mealy-mouthed that could be wrangled into “I was more or less right” no matter what happens.

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