Yeah, and the strong lack of past boxed sets flying off the shelves is why we went digital in the first place. TONS of games vie for shelf space, and games that don't sell aren't going to get on the racks. They want the product to move, not sit there and collect dust.
That stuff will give you the Swine Flu
So ship half a million copies instead of a million.
I am with you on this one. There is zero chance that never played UO will walk into a game store and walk out with the latest UO release. I would be happy with a 1% chance. Or a 10% chance. None is worse than some.
Except that if you, for example, speed-hack it offers you little advantage against monsters. And that PvMers aren't typically competing against one another in the same way, except when they are in fact Fellies who've come to Tarmmel for whatever reason (not that they ever admit to doing so), like this jerk I saw in Doom last night whining that anyone but him was hitting the DF. Oh and there's also a lot less smack talking on the boards about one's ability to, for example, kill a Dark Father, unless of course it's a Fellie doing that whole "competitive" thing that you all do so well.
I have no idea what you mean by this.
There is no way EA is going to print 500,000 copies if they did a box. I have no idea how many they would, maybe 25,000? Maybe as low as 10,000? Warhammer Online only managed to sell 1.2 million copies and it was a brand new game. How is UO going to manage to unload 500,000 copies. Each current player would have to buy 5-10 boxes.
If each current player buys one wouldn't that be about 150k sold? Then you would have a few hundred thousand for....wait for it....new players. Will they sell them all? No. But they would sell some. And they would definitely sell more than they will by not selling any, right? So, let's say 500,000 is two high. 300k? Better?
Games ship discs all the time that require people to patch on the day of the release to take care of changes that went in after discs were stamped. No reason UO can't do the same thing.
A box on the shelf is good no matter when it is there, for the most part. As long as the delay between release of the game and the arrival of the box on the shelf isn't so high that it's lost all relevance. Tossing out an AoS box onto the shelves now wouldn't do much good, obviously. Tossing out an SA box a few weeks after SA is released, not so bad. Better than no box ever.
The numbers are irrelevent. I just pulled those two out of thin air. My point is that not having any boxes on the shelves are hurting the game more than having them out there, even if they don't sell right away. A small instore presense is 1000x better than none at all. I'd love to see a box show up on shelves even a month after release. There should be one out there. Limiting SA to digital distribution only is shooting themselves in the foot.
Agreed. You have to spend money to make money. There is a reason why advertising is usually fairly high up on the budget priority lists of successful enterprises.
You said handle your product. huhuhuhuhuhuh
I have 2 of those maps
Ya, because 'career' *insert career type* people never do things the wrong way. That's why the economy is so great and unemployment is so low. There is such a thing as incompetence, even in big business.
Most people here aren't realistic about where UO is in its lifecycle. Nor are they realistic about the costs of putting the boxes on shelves vs. how many new players it would draw in.
If their goal as a company is to increase their customer base, increase their profit, develop larger brand loyalty, increase their market share, and increase their dividend for their stockholders and/or company owners, then no.. I have no faith.. regardless of whether I am sitting on an armchair, couch, ottoman, sling chair, fainting couch, love seat or side chair.
ROFL! Utterly too funny! Thank you dear lady for giving me reason for my daily laugh. LOLThat stuff will give you the Swine Flu
I think you are spot on
Exactly. Too many people are focused on what 'we' want as opposed to what the game 'needs'. Which, in most minds except for EA and a few people on here, is more new players.
It costs significantly more than 10 cents. The DVD itself costs 10 cents. Then add the jewel case, the color paper manual, the cardboard, the box itself, the plastic wrapping, the stickers and sealers, the payment to the company making all this, the shipping to the store, the cost of getting the stores to want to host your game, the cut you have to give to the store.D'Amavir" said:
For the record, I was agreeing with the idea of putting it on the shelf. Not the actual price.
$10-15 for some copies is better than $25 for no copies. I think we agree that if EA sells NO boxes, they will make less than if they sold SOME boxes. And, you have to take into consideration the monthly increase in profits from having new players paying a subscription fee. As opposed to no new players paying subscription fees.
Every time I log in I say my 'I wish AoS didn't happen' prayer but it never seems to work. And I prayed last night to have EA actually promote SA outside of just the current player base. We will see how those prayers work out.
No, we don't agree.
So new players that play the game don't have to pay a monthly subscription fee? I thought they did but I guess I could be wrong.
Again, the game needs new players or it will eventually close. How that simple fact is in question is beyond me.
You don't think that having boxes on the shelf helped WoW get as many subscribers as they have right now? Really? That played no part in it? Then why did they bother putting boxes on the shelves when they could have just went all digital download and quadrupled the profits?
Two words for ya, 3rd Dawn. That was the former developers 'expertise'. Two more words for ya, Kingdom Reborn. That was EA's 'expertise'.
Getting new players is a lot more difficult at this point than trying to recapture former players. That is the angle I think the developers are trying to go for at this point and I agree with them. There are many hundreds of thousands of former players out there who still romanticize about their experiences in UO. You see Ultima brought up in just about every MMO discussion. Getting those people back with the right changes is a whole lot easier than trying to market to brand new people.
Well one factor is that Blizzard couldn't handle the downloads. They have had to restort to a torrent-like distribution of their patches because of all the bandwidth required. That may not be the case today, but a couple years ago they were in real trouble. So trying to handle thousands of client downloads per day would have been big trouble.
Three words: Not EA's fault.
Sure. If the developers made 'the right changes'. But, since they don't usually make the 'right changes' we don't get old players back or new players. Why not do something to get back both? Good changes AND advertising.
Hmm, having too many people wanting your game? Dreadful. Good thing UO doesn't have that problem huh? You are right, having boxes showing the brand new game called WoW had zero to do with its success. Blizzard was foolish to waste their time putting boxes on the shelf.
Ding ding ding. Its on the shelf, it sells. Hmmm, yeah, that's bad.
I bought the very first box containing UO. Still have it. Most of my friends that I played with for years did the same. Most of the people that play WoW did the same thing.Just curious how many that play actually had to buy something off the shelf before they started playing?
*I feel a poll coming on lol*
I didnt. I downloaded.
I heard about it from a friend, who heard from a friend, etc.
More marketing would be nice but I dont think being on a shelf is gonna make much difference at this stage. After the way KR was I think they are doing the right thing. Nobody want to hype up something that winds up being unsuccessful.
IMO, If the new SA client is a hit Im sure youll see more promotions and
possibly a box in stores.
was killing people in diablo when someone mentioned this owo site to me...went to EB games the day it was released and got my big box with a cloth map and pin lmao...and logged right into a bunch of flamewall'sJust curious how many that play actually had to buy something off the shelf before they started playing?
*I feel a poll coming on lol*
I didnt. I downloaded.
I heard about it from a friend, who heard from a friend, etc.
More marketing would be nice but I dont think being on a shelf is gonna make much difference at this stage. After the way KR was I think they are doing the right thing. Nobody want to hype up something that winds up being unsuccessful.
IMO, If the new SA client is a hit Im sure youll see more promotions and
possibly a box in stores.
UO mostly has current developers work on the expansion. So there really isn't that much additional cost. It is a bit different though with them working on a client, they have a bit of extra help on board for that I would suppose.
Yes but you forget about the new customers and how much a new customer is worth. Lets be extremely conservative and say 25,000 new customers result when there are boxes on shelves. AoC and WAR sold 750,000 new boxes. Say these 25k customers, again conservatively remain subscribers for 2 years. That would be 2.5 million per year times 2, or $5 million dollars revenue. Which is why you would want to have boxes on shelves unless the risk of damage to your brand is not worth it.
Those are by no means conservative numbers when talking about UO. Getting 25,000 new accounts might boost UO subscriptions by 1/4 to 1/3. That is a 25-33% increase.
I see no reason to think a box in stores would add that many though.
Yes but when was the last time a box was on the shelf? 8th age/SE? Maybe, if it was stocked? I know my game store only had the pre-orders that were dispatched on those two editions and even then they had NO clue about them until I rang them and got them to look it up to order. Before that, AOS?
After SA is released, if EA releases a REAL 3D client in stores, they will sell 700,000 or more boxes just like AoC did and just like WAR did. The goal would then be, as it is now, to keep customers for as long as possible. If decent new content is released every month as opposed to every 4 months, EA will keep subscribers for a very long time.