Why we are getting so little new content and it will stay that way forever...
I keep thinking something new will come. I keep hearing about the time to develop and test as excuses. I keep hearing about our investments financially will help drive CG development.
I'm here to inform you all that the above just simply isn't true. Any coder could tell you how small manipulations to the cantina could create a new game arena easily and you guys have posited many neat ideas...
The reason why we will not get many new meta or new parts to the game is that they have a ridiculous golden goose laying golden eggs. They make $250000 $ day which makes this game economy $100,000,000 a year. New people constantly sign up. They have developmental paralysis cause they are terrified of breaking the golden goose. Look at the 200 crystal reward today because servers were down. Look at our anger about Poe changes, vitriol about Yoda. If you were them you would only commit to very small incremental changes. It is the smart thing to do businesswise.
Drop your hopes. This game will be essentially unchanged in 6 months. Keep dreaming about the pilot abilities and gilds and in game chat and new interesting metas. Not going to happen. Too much risk... In the next year expect a few events that are the same occasional new characters and that is it...
I'm here to inform you all that the above just simply isn't true. Any coder could tell you how small manipulations to the cantina could create a new game arena easily and you guys have posited many neat ideas...
The reason why we will not get many new meta or new parts to the game is that they have a ridiculous golden goose laying golden eggs. They make $250000 $ day which makes this game economy $100,000,000 a year. New people constantly sign up. They have developmental paralysis cause they are terrified of breaking the golden goose. Look at the 200 crystal reward today because servers were down. Look at our anger about Poe changes, vitriol about Yoda. If you were them you would only commit to very small incremental changes. It is the smart thing to do businesswise.
Drop your hopes. This game will be essentially unchanged in 6 months. Keep dreaming about the pilot abilities and gilds and in game chat and new interesting metas. Not going to happen. Too much risk... In the next year expect a few events that are the same occasional new characters and that is it...
0
Replies
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Any changes made to the game will cost time and money. If said changes don't generate profit, they typically won't happen. That's business 101 for any business ever.
BUT....if they don't add new content and game modes eventually, more and more people will stop playing and (most importantly) stop spending money. So with that in mind, I do expect we will see some more content and game modes eventually, just not as quickly as most of us (myself included) would like to see them.
Speed meta, game balance, and major overhauls will take the better part of a year, yes.
And there will always be loud noises on the forums, Which is why if you are a big corporate developer you know better than to put much stock in them, hire some intern forum rep to pretend the company cares and move on.
Bingo
It's really the same premise except Star Wars is way more popular than Dragon Age. They don't have to and won't do **** to make absurd amounts of money. And that's why they won't
I don't expect miracles but I do think they will add things to the game over time.
You know what generates even more money? A level cap increase, with all the addicts spending gems on refreshes for power leveling. A new game mode with yet another thing to farm. New characters added to chromiums and especially to cantina - which i'm 100% is the main money maker/ gem sink; NOT the chromium packs - There's a reason old ben was added to cantina. It's not because he's bad (not every arena team has a yoda), it's not even because EA are just such good guys they give away one of the most coveted chromium char - it's because CANTINA MAKES MONEY when you stick good characters in there - same reason QGJ ended there instead of arena or GW.
The game will not stop updating. It's 4 months, we've already had one major update and small ones every 3 weeks or so. Tell me how many mobile games (or even pc/ console online games) have that.
Personally I hope a level cap increase will come in the next 2-3 weeks. Mainly because I want the level 72 gear challenges unlocked, because those hairdryers arent worth my energy in their current drop rate. The sooner I unlock the challenge, the soon i can start stocking up on what is going to be a long, long, long challenge grind.
In my experience, typically the top 500 of every server chain is max level, gear, etc. etc.
In my experience on forums, friends, etc... I have some ranged estimates on the game revenue.
500/20,000 = 2.5%
I'm assuming minimally 2.5% of the game are 'consistent players.'
My margin on this estimate is 2.5-5%.
So I'ma ssuming 2.5-5% have input SOME form of money into the game throughout the time they play. Be that the $5 start bundle, 20 bucks here and there, the 'whales' dropping thousands of dollars....
And so I estimate that the average amount of money spent per 'active player' is approxamitely $10. This may be a very low estimate. I'll assume an upper average of $20.
2.5% of game 'active' populus on 10 million downloads(more then that now), is 250,000 'active.'
250k multiplied by low estimate of $10 is 2.5 million in revenue.
So my absolute lowest minimum estimate is they generate 10 million annually in revenue.
Probably way too low.
So I work on my higher end estimates.
Assuming the active paynig base is 500k, with an averaged amount spent of $50(whales and strong p2p influence deeply), and we're looking at $25 million quarterly, up to $100 million annually.
And they're growing quickly.
I have no knowledge of business and game studios but i imagine about 3o-50 people work at CG, if that, and their average income is approxamitely $150k (higher end estimate on payroll.)
So that's 7.5 million annually in studio development costs. I assume there aren't much problems in licensing/royalties as Disney owns EA, CG, etc.
So beyond that there's really only costs incurred via Sales and Marketing, which shouldn't be terribly large - I'll assume 10 million in a venture with Google and iOS advertising.
So I'm assuming maybe 20 million in costs annually at maximum to maintian the game, with current potential to earn up to 100 million.
If they did nothing new to the game, elaving it as is, it will hit those numbers probably, for a year.
Now, with creating new content, etc. - that could take exceptional amounts of bonus/overtime expenses hwich can double production cosrs to generate new content. So their costs could increase easily to 35-40 million a year.
Still, this would generate greater interest and create further profit.
Business-wise, EA has no incentive to create new content and make the invesstment - it's questionable if it will result in profit and creates potential to alter an already healthy stream of income.
That's where we're at.
which of course will be accompanied by a new tier of extremely hard to grind gear which will just happen to be available in level 82 challenges dangling a new carrot forever just out of reach.
250,000 dollars a day isnt really in the top grossing category considering the licence etc.
May I ask what source you got the figure from and if that is revenue or profit?
You can paint it pink, add Ewoks, add Sith, make it do a backflip and a Bikini with D Size Cup, but it still is just a battle.
And that gets monotonous, boring, eventually we will all realize this and even new content won't surprise or satisfy.
Interestingly it was 250000 a day when I checked in midfebruary. It was 96000 yesterday. This source has been quoted a lot here...
Hmm, What happened in mid February that contributed to $250K per day and what has been happening since?
Mid February there was some communication about an upcoming event (content) that made people excited to get more characters so they could do the event. What has been happening recently? Scant communication and an event that only part of the player base can participate in. Hopefully EA/CG understand that they have a player base that will continue to spend money as long as they push out content good for all.
A dev just gave you the answer guys, so it just proved the op is wrong. Enough said.
I'm Atheist and retired.
1) Agree with @Yarzahn on the characters going to cantina new toons in chromium driving microtransactions for all of us.
2) Agree with level caps and painful gearing up to 50's make farming exponentially more painful. Same model as all level up games. More pain for incremental improvements. Quick burst of capital for player base to get to 80.
3) Slowly changing meta with RG or Ashoka drives revenue. They keep doing it.
4) New whales are still the lifeblood. Human psychology shows us you get excited spend $4000 for chromiums and gearing and stars and
5) credit crunch drives revenue. nerf the event. make expensive new cards for credits and droids. nerf the 2x and 3x (bought one yesterday).
What doesn't drive revenue and/or puts existing revenue at risk:
1) audacious new content. big moves. swift new metas... this is why we are doomed to small incremental adjustments. steady stream of little events and monthly 2 toons new, maybe. Yoda was the best thing to happen to the game since it came out. But look at the graphics it was planned since game inception. My guess is the event hurt revenue and they nerfed it being a monthly.
2) Five dollar dooku packs are gone. I suspect $175 for a seven star like aurodium with purples might not even come back. Look at the last minute pull of that pack without warning. I think their management viewed it as "too cheap"
3) Lot fewer jedi packs and such lately. We'd all buy them and most of us regret when we didn't get them... Don't expect too many more...
4) They are terrified to break this cash cow... My point stands. This will lead to tiny incrementalism.
Those who have paid a lot I think underestimate how much more psychologically they would pay. EA already has the lions share of what you will give. The whales are the most bored group.
Let what they have done lately predict your future: 1) crummy droid event was likely new 2) nerfed the key card events 3) took away the yoda event 4) and added my favorite "the shard shop" fortuneately the whales were confused and happy about having GG to spend on. Thanks whales.
In 6 months there will not be a new method of game play or new big change that makes us happy. Too many new whales to catch on the hook... Too many of us and our micro transactions to get old ben then chief chirpa. New big moves threaten the steady profit stream.
96k per day as revenue isn't really that much as yet so they are still growing. I was just enquiring out of curiosity but as they're a bigger company than supercell who were on 4mil a day or something ridiculous last time I saw a figure they will have bigger overheads etc but also should have a bigger development team.
To be honest I'm not fussed about when we get the new content however I'd like better communication. If they're working on a new game mode - tell us they're working in one. Dont have to give the details. If they're working on an event again tell us and give us some notice to farm the characters. Some rough time frames for things as well wouldn't hurt. If you know new stuff is coming but it's 2 months away then less people would have their panties in a twist.
Word. +1. Better communication and an outline for the future would be awesome. But reading dev leaks on reddit and @EA_Jesse and all of the communication these guys don't know what the future is. They are flying by the seat of their pants. Decisions are being argued week to week at developers and management meetings... You can see that from the way in which decisions are being made. They are afraid to break this revenue stream and are trying small alterations to see what drives revenue. Slowly but surely they are dialing this game in with occasional small things thrown in.
We all look at the game board. We love the toons and the animations and the strategy of PVP. We dream of guilds, live PVP, new challenging things like GW, big GW improvements, chat with our shard. None of these things will happen. Their model is a virtual fait acompli... They have made a fair game for pvp and ftp, using a valuable and important franchise, and have a ratio of obsession and engagement and spending that wildly outstrips the simplicity of the rehashed game model. This thing works for EA and it is working for all of us that complain on here even if we don't realize it. I like the game and use it a lot. I just wish it could offer more. I have 2 hours of tedious gameplay a day forced into my life at specific times, an hour of message boarding on the forums about it (is fun), and 30 minutes a week where I get to do something fun in gameplay (yoda, buffed ashoka, buffed RG, new seven star toon, staring at new aurodium packs and wondering).