best strategy to get pox updated

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Kicrimson, Mar 27, 2018.

  1. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    The other games pay for themselves. They are work for hire projects. This means that some other entity is paying for their production. This is the simplistic explanation (the arrangements are typically more contractually complex).

    Game companies (especially small indie ones) often take work for hire projects to:
    1. Pay the bills so they can keep the lights on
    2. Pay themselves so they can eat and pay rent
    3. Put money away for a runway for their own projects
    Until they get a success with their own product and have some money in the bank. Which is basically what Pox did for Octopi, and then you can use the money to expand/support that product, including features, expansions, and more importantly, develop additional products and revenue streams. This is known as "the dream."

    (For example, the guys that made FTL had a success, so then they released an expansion for it relatively quickly, then banked the money and spent the next 4 years living off the savings to make Into the Breach - which they hope will be a similar or bigger success, so they can do it again.)

    This is what happened with Pox with Octopi. They started adding onto the game (factions, single player), developing expansions, more features (such as the Single Rune Store), etc. with a game like this you can spend more time/resources adding onto it because each expansion is a large revenue bump.

    And then they sold it to SOE. Had they NOT sold it to SOE, at some point, some of the money Pox was making would have been used to fund a new project (maybe Pox related, maybe not). But in general, the timespan in which a product is doing well enough to not support its own maintenance AND new projects is not that long. Once the product is on the decline, however it is very hard to turn that around because your revenues are shrinking, your playerbase is shrinking, and your rate of return on anything you do is also shrinking. So unless you have some outside resources to gamble with (such as Sony backing the new client), you might not be able to do much outside of sweat equity (which DOG put in after acquiring Pox from SOE). Again, this isn't to say you have to agree or like what they did, but they DID do it.

    Of course, with a big enough success you could fund many gambles (for example, you end up with something like WOTC/MtG that has enough resources to do fund many things, fail a bunch and rebrand/update and get back on track), but these are the exceptions, not the rule, and many game companies have trouble if a product doesn't meet expectations because they spent their runway on it.
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2018
  2. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    Well to your point they indeed took a gamble in buying pox, but a gamble before and a gamble today are different, they made the choice this time to move on.

    Not much else to say.

    Another gamble would of been required at this point as equal to the original, this means a large sum of cash spent in marketing and client fixes to revitalise the player base, with almost a guarantee to not see return on the money unless it pays off.

    Btw I don't blame them, if it was my money I'd make the same choice, at least in it's current state.
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2018
  3. LoganMkv

    LoganMkv I need me some PIE!

    @Sokolov
    Sorry, but there's quite a difference between a game being old, being on decline, and being fuсkеd up to death by poor management.
    For example Lineage1, released in 1998(!), had been netting ncsoft more than all new multimillion-yearsindevelopment mmos up to mid 2017, and it had been pretty much domestic market only.

    DOG is sitting on huge amount of "sweet equity" in art, loyal playerbase and already established networking/financial/legal stuff - what even bestselling new indie games can't dream of.
    And yet, instead of spending very tiny amount (in comparsion) to hire few remote russian coders and chinese asset guys to revive the game after soe abandoned it, they decided to maintain an office with US salaries, and haven't been able to do anything functional at all for 3 years.
     
  4. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    So that's actually super interesting and one of the things I plan to talk about more when it's time for the post-mortem. But when SOE shut down Tucson and moved Pox to San Diego, it became a skeleton crew in part because San Diego is so much more expensive - you are talking about 2x the cost per employee when it's all said and done. Tucson, on the other hand, is much, much cheaper which is part of the reason why SOE was going to just shut down Pox but DOG felt they could keep it going for awhile longer. But being in Tucson you do end up with the problem of it being hard to hire people - which is partly why about half of DOG has/had been remote (including myself, @Wraith and @Moles). The funny part is that @Wraith and @Moles were basically exactly "a few Russian/Chinese coders" conceptually.

    In any case, I know it always seems easy from the outside, but I think anyone who has tried to run their own businesses will tell you that it's not that way, and while there are always success stories like Lineage being around for so long, they tend to be the exceptions, not the rule.

    Again, this doesn't mean you can't criticize, or that there isn't anything to criticize, my point was largely that suggesting DOG didn't try is a bit silly. Taking a game that was about to be shut down and trying to make it work is the definition of a gamble.
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2018
    MrCharles and hfok like this.
  5. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    And my point was to fix the game now would take a gamble. Nothing for or against any previous gambles.
     
  6. OriginalG1

    OriginalG1 I need me some PIE!

    A patch focused on visuals would be delightful. All the spells and AoE's act as intended. On champion abilities had visuals and the visuals worked as intended.

    Next patch would be an active (clickable) combat log for spell information.

    Patch at fixing ingame descriptions for equipment, relic and abilities.

    Then pox will be in good shape.
     
  7. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    yep for everything but the lag the client should be easy to fix and get back to a playable state had they not abandoned it.

    the general sluggishness, and bugs around targeting seem like major issues, at least as an outsider looking in.
     
  8. Gnomes

    Gnomes Forum Royalty

    I always wondered about moles. I mean I've played lol with him and he is a nice guy, and maybe my memories are wrong. But I remember for half a year it was "we are just getting the new coders up to speed then things will happen much better" and then after half a year he quit out of personal reasons. Or what happened there?
     
  9. BansheeX

    BansheeX I need me some PIE!

    Pox 2.0
    Do away with random Runes. Make people able to purchase what they want
    Streamlining
     
  10. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    Except this is what you said:

    And these other projects were started long before "now" and some (like Huntsman) has been out for awhile. By the time the public knows about projects they usually have been in place for awhile - for example, Space Wars started in 2015.
     
  11. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    yes, not sure where the disconnect is.

    right now they are investing time and money(you claim this is paid for by someone else so this part would be wrong at least if true) into other projects, which is a gamble they are taking on something other then pox, if pox were to have as I put it "a fighing chance" they'd need to be gambling on pox in a big way, right now. anything done before is irrelevant to right now.

    while it may be true the money for the other projects is true the fact that they are using 100% of their dev time on those projects is at the expense of pox, it's a poor move if your intention is to ever kep your main IP alive.

    it doesn't matter how much food you eat before when you are starving now, if this gets my point across.
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2018
  12. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    The disconnect is that if you want them to gamble more now, you should say that only, instead, you use the fact that other projects have been worked on to imply that DOG is using Pox to fund their other projects now - which is blatantly false.
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2018
    OriginalG1 likes this.
  13. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    I will concede that I have no evidence that they are using pox money to fund the other projects, just like my old crap of a studio I once worked at never used money from other projects to fund paid projects *wink wink*.

    but money isn't the only form of investment that needs to be paid at the expense of other projects.
     
  14. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    I feel like this happens a lot when I talk to you. You make assumptions, say false stuff, then I call you out on it, and you change what you are saying while ignoring what you actually said before.
     
  15. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    sure you do that but nothing has changed my original statement is the same I will type it but again and mean exactly the same thing i'll brea it down for you if you want

    it would take solid marketing on top of a solid client to bring people to pox - point one establishing what would be required to fix pox IMO

    'm unsure where they are getting the money to fund other gambles like their other projects - establising I don't know how they are paying for the project.

    but ultimately I expect those gambles/projects will fail - my theory on the future of those projects

    where as had they gambled on pox they might of had a fighting chance. - what I believe they should of invested there time and money into.
     
  16. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

     
  17. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    That does align with my idea for another game based on the Pox IP - not that I am saying it's happening or anything, just that I think the current model (lots of lots of content released in expansion format) is hard to sustain for this type of game.
     
  18. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    as I said I suspected and still do really that any profits if any exist are being taken from pox for other projects. if that is not the case I'm wrong about that fact. does it change anything abut my point?
     
  19. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    I thought we weren't talking about the past? You are using past tense here again.
     
  20. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    it's current tense at least for he gamble, they are still working on those projects now.

    1 we know of possibly others we don't

    the gamble I claim they are taking is ongoing at this moment, though the decision to do it is in the past.
     

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