desviper wrote:

The math troubles me:

15$ a month * 10,000 subscribers (double the current fb likes) * 12 months a year = 1 800 000$ as a year's revanue.

I don't argue your use of 10,000 as a subscriber base for CoT. But the thing is, it is the total player base that is really going to matter. Whatever the amount of subscribers ends up being, the amount of non subbing players will most likely be significantly bigger. They may not be dropping $180/year on the game, and sure, some will buy the box and little more, but if you get the players invested in the game they will spend money on it.

desviper wrote:

Usage note: can we agree to put monetary units like $ after the numeral, like with every other unit in existence. "$15" is read "fifteen dollars" not "dollars fifteen". Exception: "$ 2.5 million" since it doesn't use numerals.

That's un-American! In America, we put the $ first! :p

Seriously, adopting the convention of putting the $ after the numbers will probably confuse readers. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just that it's unconventional usage for those in the US.

Be Well!
Fireheart

A couple of other things to consider: Figuring salary is more than dividing revenue by number of employees. There are over business expenses including but not limited to taxes, licensing fees, tech budget, supplies, rainy day fund, customer service, marketing, public relations, travel expenses for business related events, infrastructure (like bandwidth, if we're ever at the multi-tens of thousands in connected players someone has to cover the bill for the networking involved), and profit. The company needs a profit if it ever wants to utilize funds for additional purposes. Infrastructure that doesn't quite apply to us at this time but may in the future could be a physical office location, which would then have to cover lease / rent, utilities, office supplies, janitorial service, security, mail clerks, and other non-production staff.

Indie devs can make anywhere from as little as 10k / yr (as a really rough standard for success discounting solo devs making much less) up to the industry standards with production business end salaries of traditional studios making over 100k / yr. Consider that we are one of a very few virtual development teams, one of the even fewer virtual dev teams making an MMO, and going the employee owned company route in the tumultuous game development industry, not to mention MMO failure rate makes MMO development a bit of a risk, and those of us who make the leap from volunteer to employee/owner are sure in for a wild ride.

desviper wrote:

True of course, there're many more costs involved, which comes back to the question raised by the troubling math.
I'm still under the impression that Superhero MMOs is a bit of a niche, with fantasy games hogging all the customers.

It is in the grand scheme of things. Ten million plus WoW players versus less than a million playing every Superhero MMO out there. Yeah...fantasy is king. I don't have a problem with that.

Now look at the movie industry. Comics are dying but superhero movies have seen tremendous strength in the last decade. Marvel is a juggernaut and as long as the movies are good that train is charted to 2025 and beyond. That's a whole generation growing up with superheroes plastered all over the movie and tv screen all the time just like comics were way back when.

The overhead on the game may be huge. I've never dealt with the kinds of hardware and software we're talking about but I imagine bandwidth, servers, software updates etc alone will be 10% of the budget or more. The fact that the now-virtual volunteers might someday have to be brick-and-mortar employees means a building, insurance, utilities etc. Another 10% or so I'd guess. Let's say after all is said and done 30% is overhead and the rest can be cut into salaries. Your numbers paint a pretty grim picture.

CoT cannot survive on 10,000 subs. No game could unless it was a 'run the servers, no updates' kind of operation. However why did CoH, what many of us claim to be the greatest game ever, only have 100,000 subs? In part it was the market. Lots of other games out there. In part it was the economy. Many game companies have not recovered from the 2008 downturn yet and that was 6 years ago. In part it was the game itself. The engine was old, buggy and in places impossible to change or update. Many of the early players were driven off by vast changes (like ED) or a lack of updates. Some basic features were never properly implemented. And, like it or not, the game was around for a long time and many of the players simply outgrew it. The game failed to grow with them (for a variety of reasons) and they moved on.

Now we come to CoT, our new Messiah...the Golden Child. Firstly, we have over 5000 hard-core followers (which is to say the contributed to the KS). Secondly, most (if not all) of the current Devs played the game and so will hopefully avoid some of the original teams mistakes. Hardware is better and therefore cheaper in some cases. Graphics are more readily available. Best of all, the air is thick with superheroes. That is why I'm so adamant about the game being open and fun for as many players as possible, especially new players. I don't want ANY player to be lost or confused about anything if they're willing to take a minute and do the tutorial.

We're going to make games fun again. We believe in what we're doing. That's why we'll succeed.

BTW be wary of "lifetime subscriptions". Like exercise club scams in the 1980s, where do you think they will get the money to run in a few years? They spend it now. They don't invest it. It goes on today's bottom line.

Gorgon wrote:

If you like a game and have graduated and have a job, consider being P2P. $15/mo. is nothing unless you are under financial duress. You spend that much on one dinner out for one.
I just don't get the fury some people have over "paying" a subscription fee. It's a killer for them. WTH.
Students or people in debt, fine. Be F2P. But if you have a real job, sign up and stop bitching about the lesser stuff of F2P. That's the realm for students.
You're all growed up now, and can pay a pittance for something you play 20-80 hours a month. Compare vs. movies or cable TV or anything else.
Yeesh. If I hear one more engineer whining about "I ain't paying monthly, what a ripoff, back to GW fer me!" I'm gonna scream.

You may not get it, but then again, they don't get why you [i]would[/i] spend $15/month just to play a game.

My wife has an uncle. He could easily afford to have cable but doesn't because he "refuses to pay money for television". True, the days of cable being less than $20/month are long gone, but it has little to do with the cost. I've mentioned my friend before on the forums, he won't play any game with a monthly fee but he has dropped over $100/year on GW2. They aren't cheapskates, and they don't want something for nothing, some people just don't like paying a monthly fee for a service.

And you know what, letting these people in under F2P/hybrid models has been a boon to MMOs. It's been a few years now, but i remember Turbine announcing how much more money LotRO and DDO were making since going to F2P. And beyond financials, having more active players (even the free loaders) is better for the game experience as a whole.

My wife and I fully plan to be subscribers, but I was very pleased to hear early on that MWM was going with a buy the box model with an optional subscription. I [i]know[/i] it is going to bring in a lot more players, and in the end a lot more money to the game.