CoH, Sales and a test audit

[FatherXmas]

I get the seasons, but there's whole years of reasons the entire set of quarters would be different.

Yes but the point is at least the seasonal variables have been accounted for so now you can look for other reasons why the change, for good or bad.  Retailers go one step further and report same store sales so expansion or contraction of total stores doesn't hide overall growth (or shrinkage).

[P51mus]

I don't think it takes much to get on their good side. And I highly doubt that the BBB is still on the side of the consumer.

Decided to try the most obvious comparison. Oddly, EA isn't even rated.

Riot games and Valve, two very excellent companies, have F ratings by the BBB.  So, it makes me wonder what the heck their ratings are based on.

[dwturducken]

Let's take a moment to review the existing threads on the BBB before going further down that road. The discussion was fairly comprehensive.

[Starsman]

OK I did my data entry for both, Guild Wars 1 and Aion respectively, here are the tables:

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=starsmangames.com%2Ftest%2FRevGW.pnghttps://images.weserv.nl/?url=starsmangames.com%2Ftest%2FRevAion.png

Aion is still pulling a lot of money, but darn, the shrinking is insane! Look those numbers! It has an average decline of 23% since its third year! For reference, CoH's "shrinking" was of about 9%.

Guild Wars 1 is also another big down spiral, actually, it seems to have hit such a big low in Q3 that they didn't list it in the report, apparently they stamped it under "Other".

But this may confirm the Cash Shop revenues may not be accounted at all in the reports. Aion kept the same average loss even after the jump to F2P, something that makes no sense at all. I think this is enough prove to think all games with a cash shop are performing better than NCSoft is reporting... I ponder why would they feel it's to their best interest to show games performing worse than they actually are... not to mention... where they tucking that money away...?

[FatherXmas]

Yes, with the release of GW2, GW1's numbers are also now lumped into the "Others" category.  As an aside they only broke out Tabula Rasa's numbers for four quarters where it started at around 5,000 million KrW and dropped to around 1/3 of that the remaining three quarters it was reported.  The game actually lasted six quarters with the last two swept under the rug for Aion's glowing sales.

I also had looked at GW1's numbers and how they relate to CoH's a few months ago.

https://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a213/FatherXmas/Charts/CoH-GWFixed.jpg

This shows the trailing twelve months of sales of both games in USD, CoH in blue, GW in orange.  It shows the difference between a game that is subscription + box sales based versus one that's just box sales with paid expansions and an item store.  ArenaNet announced GW2 development in March 2007.  NCSoft publicly announced at the end of 2009 that GW2 would be ready in 2011 so that may have impacted some GW sales.

https://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a213/FatherXmas/Charts/CoH-GWSum.jpg

This shows the accumulated sales of each game, again CoH in blue and GW in orange.  GW had greater sales in less time than CoH.  In the first 3 years it's sales were 50% higher than the first 3 years of CoH.  And while it's sales dropped off after the last expansion, they potentially had a big enough nest egg to finance most of the GW2 development.

[Kuriositys Kat]

Yes, with the release of GW2, GW1's numbers are also now lumped into the "Others" category.  As an aside they only broke out Tabula Rasa's numbers for four quarters where it started at around 5,000 million KrW and dropped to around 1/3 of that the remaining three quarters it was reported.  The game actually lasted six quarters with the last two swept under the rug for Aion's glowing sales.

I also had looked at GW1's numbers and how they relate to CoH's a few months ago.

https://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a213/FatherXmas/Charts/CoH-GWFixed.jpg

This shows the trailing twelve months of sales of both games in USD, CoH in blue, GW in orange.  It shows the difference between a game that is subscription + box sales based versus one that's just box sales with paid expansions and an item store.  ArenaNet announced GW2 development in March 2007.  NCSoft publicly announced at the end of 2009 that GW2 would be ready in 2011 so that may have impacted some GW sales.

https://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a213/FatherXmas/Charts/CoH-GWSum.jpg

This shows the accumulated sales of each game, again CoH in blue and GW in orange.  GW had greater sales in less time than CoH.  In the first 3 years it's sales were 50% higher than the first 3 years of CoH.  And while it's sales dropped off after the last expansion, they potentially had a big enough nest egg to finance most of the GW2 development.

One thing that sticks in my memory is the sale promotion banners/posters and stickers in the game shops here in OZ for both Aion and GW 1/2. CoH not a glimmer, yep marketing pays.

[Little Green Frog]

One thing that sticks in my memory is the sale promotion banners/posters and stickers in the game shops here in OZ for both Aion and GW 1/2. CoH not a glimmer, yep marketing pays.

Yes, there was never any serious effort at marketing the title beyond the launch of City of Villains, I think. And then the charts seem to indicate that the abrupt closure happened as City of Heroes' revenue stabilized indicating that it could go on like it is for a few years - not being very lucrative, but pulling its weight. It makes me wonder whether the management didn't count on the game slowly fading away and intervened when it became apparent it probably won't in a foreseeable future.

[Mazz vs The World]

Funny you mention marketing. The first time I even saw COH was in Wal-Mart and the word Hero made me pick up the box which then led me to buy it and play it. This was long ago of course and it may have even been before NCSoft. With that said, alot of people have no idea about this game so yeah they suck at marketing when it comes to COH of course.

[FatherXmas]

A constant stream of boxes in stores pay.  It's the freest advertising.  How many people have purchased a game after reading the back of a box?  Tough to do that when it's not in the store or have been reduced to a dangling card next to dangling cards of proxy currency. 

And in the case of MMOs, not being on the shelf (or time cards) may suggest to some who had heard of the game that the game may no longer be around.  Even worse would be one beat up dusty box lumped in with the other old and unpopular titles.

It always bugged my that Going Rogue got filed under G in stores that bothered to alphabetized and not C because the staff would simply look at C and say they don't have City of Heroes.

[Starsman]

Made a revision to my original chart with some events added in. My timing may be off, let me know if you notice I put something in the wrong quarter.

First big drop the game got is the expected one a year after the CoV release, given the unatural spike due to box sales, it was just expected there would be a Year over Year drop that quarter.

Anyways, if I get this right, seems the biggest "bad" thing to happen to CoH was the release of Champions Online. Didn't half the comunity but it did steal a lot of players.

It seems every box release was very good for the game, and that things started also going downhill with the cancelation of the Top Cow comic book, and the box did not have to be a full fledge expansion like GR, any box in the shelves did enough to pump new blood into the game.

I also added I13 in there just because many villified the PvP rebalance as hurting the game, if true, it seems no one noticed until Champions launched 3 quarters later.

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=starsmangames.com%2Ftest%2FRevCoH.png

[Valjean]

Keep in mind that there was a double blow to COH, Champions Online AND Aion came out right on top of each other. If one didn't pull customers away, the other would have.

[Absolute]

I also added I13 in there just because many villified the PvP rebalance as hurting the game, if true, it seems no one noticed until Champions launched 3 quarters later.

The opposite actually. PvPers left -before- issue 13 came out. Word got out before open beta. Some quit, some more quit and once the rest could try it in open beta, almost everyone was gone.

Remember BaB's argument for power customization? Issue 13 was the opposite of that. A lot of people PvPed casually, and the PvP changes would have reduced player retention. It's not a specific figure you can really point to.

2 years before the issue 13 changes (Issue 7), I believe it was War Witch who mentioned 10% of the population and PvP. That would have dwindled down before issue 13, and then only a certain percentage of those players only PvPed. I don't think that segment lost was great enough alone to cause a decrease in revenue (Although PvPers would regularly have 4 accounts).

Issue 13 didn't destroy the game (It was the lack of marketing), but Issue 13 didn't exactly help, and probably decreased the health or reputation of the game.

A lot of people thought the game would die with issue 13 because of the choices of the developers. They said if the same changes were going to be applied to PvE (and people thought they were), the game would die. That's true. Luckily that didn't happen.


Edit: /e Facepalm  Well it did happen, but not because of that.

[Starsman]

The opposite actually. PvPers left -before- issue 13 came out. Word got out before open beta. Some quit, some more quit and once the rest could try it in open beta, almost everyone was gone.

Based on the numbers, even if every PvPer left, it didn't affect the game at all, even if they left 3 months in advance of I13's release. As you can see above, the revenue for the quarter prior to I13's release was just growth.

PvP was "popular" in I6 and I7 because it was "new" (and in I7 villains finally were able to get to 50, plus new shiny PvP zone) but it's my understanding that by I12, PvP was so rare that even counting the PvP casual players, it did not account for a full percentage of the community. That's part of the reason to go ahead with the revamp: PvP was so widely rejected that potentially alienating every single player was not a financial risk. Had the changes "worked", and encouraged PvP to flourish, then it would have been a positive thing.

It's a shame it didn't work out, and I guess it was destined to fail. In the other hand, I think many badge hunters (That were more dominant than the PvPers) were extremely happy about the PvPer's disappearance.

I know PvPers were not exactly just 3 dudes, and the community of PvPers really was affected by the change, but statistically, they were way smaller of a group than they like to think.

[Absolute]

I asked Posi in person about the PvP population at PAX 2011. That was right before issue 21.

He said it was 1% right then. That would have been the lowest it had ever been (It's not like anyone was joining PvP). If it was 1% -after- issue 13, then at issue 12, it had to have been much higher.

The population was small if you only count the people who only PvPed. Like I said, even a lot of people on these forums would have enjoyed PvP at one time or another (Casually, with friends, base raids etc.). In fact, you couldn't even PvP decently until you had logged enough PvE hours to get to level 50.

Those kinds of people didn't leave because of the i13 PvP, they just stopped playing PvP. You can't see the shift in revenue because they didn't lose money. It was just a huge quality of life fail. The lose of revenue would be seen over time as, until Incarnates, PvP was the only end-game for players.

Incarnate came out Q4 2010. The drops right after Champions came out was obviously caused by Champions, but I would confidently say a lot of people had no problem changing games because the lack of end-game (and lack of PvP). They were getting bored with their level 50s, PvP might have solved that for some of them.

Besides, I don't even know how anyone can measure the amount of people with PvP. What qualifies someone who PvPs? If they spend a certain amount of time in a zone? How many events they do in a week? I had a group of RPers that never PvPed but loved watching me duel people. What about them? We've had people wander into PvP zones and have no idea what's going on. Why aren't players told about PvP and where the zones are, the zone levels etc. There's a generic contact standing there that just tells players to get ready to be attacked.

Not only that, let's talk about PvP's potential. If we had 10% with a neglected game type, imagine if they talked to the PvPers and spent some more time on it.

I think the PvP population was actually bigger, just like the base building community was bigger. I hated building bases, but I enjoyed looking at other SG's bases. It helped me stay with CoH and helped CoH get my money, while I couldn't build a base for the life of me. I wouldn't leave the game if bases were taken out though. Some people would, but a lot of others would think "That really sucks", then move back to PvE.

That's what happened with PvP. As for our real population numbers? I'd have to see their parameters for the data mining, and I doubt they were all inclusive.

[Illusionss]

Based on the numbers, even if every PvPer left, it didn't affect the game at all, even if they left 3 months in advance of I13's release. As you can see above, the revenue for the quarter prior to I13's release was just growth.

PvP was "popular" in I6 and I7 because it was "new" (and in I7 villains finally were able to get to 50, plus new shiny PvP zone) but it's my understanding that by I12, PvP was so rare that even counting the PvP casual players, it did not account for a full percentage of the community. That's part of the reason to go ahead with the revamp: PvP was so widely rejected that potentially alienating every single player was not a financial risk. Had the changes "worked", and encouraged PvP to flourish, then it would have been a positive thing.

It's a shame it didn't work out, and I guess it was destined to fail. In the other hand, I think many badge hunters (That were more dominant than the PvPers) were extremely happy about the PvPer's disappearance.

I know PvPers were not exactly just 3 dudes, and the community of PvPers really was affected by the change, but statistically, they were way smaller of a group than they like to think.

I still think "flagged" PvP might have worked. What really put me off was calmly trying to collect badges and then being jumped unexpectedly. That REAAALLLLLLLYYY put me off. That put me off from here all the way to Alpha Centauri.

A PvP zone where those who wish to participate, can do just that while others go about their business, might have been a lot more successful. No matter how many times I heard "You dont really need those badges, if you dont like being jumped get out of our zone!!" it still never changed my mind. What it DID succeed in doing was make me think most PvPers are... not very pleasant people. I am aware that this is not a one-size-fits-all situation, but it still felt like they weren't. Mature PvPers got tarred with the same brush.

[srmalloy]

I still think "flagged" PvP might have worked. What really put me off was calmly trying to collect badges and then being jumped unexpectedly. That REAAALLLLLLLYYY put me off. That put me off from here all the way to Alpha Centauri.

At least we had zones that PvP was confined to; one of the things that turned me off of Aion was open-world PvP and the number of times I was out grinding one of the gathering skills and suddenly found myself the target of three or four characters from the other faction twenty or more levels higher than I was, who seemed to think that the MMORPG equivalent of stepping on ants proved how '1337' and skilled they were.

[Starsman]

I still think "flagged" PvP might have worked. What really put me off was calmly trying to collect badges and then being jumped unexpectedly. That REAAALLLLLLLYYY put me off. That put me off from here all the way to Alpha Centauri.

A PvP zone where those who wish to participate, can do just that while others go about their business, might have been a lot more successful. No matter how many times I heard "You dont really need those badges, if you dont like being jumped get out of our zone!!" it still never changed my mind. What it DID succeed in doing was make me think most PvPers are... not very pleasant people. I am aware that this is not a one-size-fits-all situation, but it still felt like they weren't. Mature PvPers got tarred with the same brush.

There were MANY issues with PvP in the game, mainly balance issues, secondary goal issues. Players just were able to hit way too hard in this game to make PvP fun, at the same time certain builds were nearly unlikable and even with the "diminished returns on heals" it was still possible to become immortal via healing.

PvP needed special rules from day one, and not the ones they got with the I13 revamp. Less damage and some form of limitation on healing (I love referencing games like Marvel Vs Capcom on this) would have made things likely more interesting.

Giving goals other than "kill each other" also would have been nice (Siren's Call was my favorite of all the PvP tasks added to the game, for instance.)

Some ability to simply duel anywhere also would have been nice, and I got to say I like Champion's combat radius dome thingy, run too far away and you are labeled the "looser".

Final thing that really helps PvP: you should never be simply a looser. The best way to encourage PvP is making sure everyone earns a reward, you simply make sure the reward for the winning side is greater than the losing side, just to encourage people to actually try. World of Warcraft does a great job at this in the battlegrounds.

[WildFire15]

I would have liked to have seen a team based bank robbery for PvP, with one team robbing and the other team defending. Could have been interesting and rewards could have been dished out depending on how well the teams did.

As for the 'duel' mechanic in Champs and several other MMOs, I think, it would be nice if you could set an auto decline for duelling if you're not participially interested in doing it. Or maybe if someone keeps spamming duel requests on players who aren't interested, say 10 in a row, there's a cool down period of about half an hour or so before you can request a duel again yourself.

*edit*
Additional thought on the team bank robbery, the team's wouldn't be locked to alignment, but if a hero works on the 'robbers' team then they could have an option to reduce their reward and gain a point to change alignment.

[Kuriositys Kat]

Made a revision to my original chart with some events added in. My timing may be off, let me know if you notice I put something in the wrong quarter.

First big drop the game got is the expected one a year after the CoV release, given the unatural spike due to box sales, it was just expected there would be a Year over Year drop that quarter.

Anyways, if I get this right, seems the biggest "bad" thing to happen to CoH was the release of Champions Online. Didn't half the comunity but it did steal a lot of players.

It seems every box release was very good for the game, and that things started also going downhill with the cancelation of the Top Cow comic book, and the box did not have to be a full fledge expansion like GR, any box in the shelves did enough to pump new blood into the game.

I also added I13 in there just because many villified the PvP rebalance as hurting the game, if true, it seems no one noticed until Champions launched 3 quarters later.

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=starsmangames.com%2Ftest%2FRevCoH.png

There are some other factors in there too,  US side the troop surge in 2010 and ramp up to it in late 2009.  I know that folks I ran with  went overseas and had to leave the game for that reason.
Half my global list disappeared at that time. I can discount the ones that went to try CO because they came back after  the 30 days was up  if not before. Anecdotal evidence and just IMHO but it  is what I noticed.

[srmalloy]

There are some other factors in there too,  US side the troop surge in 2010 and ramp up to it in late 2009.  I know that folks I ran with  went overseas and had to leave the game for that reason.
Half my global list disappeared at that time. I can discount the ones that went to try CO because they came back after  the 30 days was up  if not before. Anecdotal evidence and just IMHO but it  is what I noticed.

I wound up moving characters from Pinnacle to Guardian because of that; deployments and transfers hit the group I played with pretty hard, and I found myself soloing by default far more than otherwise, so I moved characters to a server that I'd already found a new group on.