Garriott exits NCsoft as profits plummet

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6200947.html

I assume the big drop in profits is due to combination of poor Tabula Rasa performance plus no new GW offerings.

I tried Tabula Rasa... Just couldn't get into it.

5.59 million activated accounts in GW. I wonder if that includes the free trial accounts and things like buddy keys.

Tabula Rasa, what a waste of money

Ive never even heard of that game...

NOO LURD BRITISH COEM BACK!?!?!?!?

But realy why do ppl still let him design games he is obviously insane.....

He was fired. No one "exits" a business.

If only all their MMOs were free to play with a cash shop selling stuff like anet sell - skill unlocks and extra characters, plus merchandise like posters, coffee mugs, T shirts, mouse mats, collectible game figures for revenue. They could even try selling exclusive cash only weapons / armor skins like the weapons you get from the Proph million edition update - maybe make variable attribute weapons like hourglass staff and sell them for 99p each, this isnt any different to making and selling a piece of art, you just get the art ingame. As long as items sold for cash are purely visual only with no superior bonuses to normal weapons, this would be a great way to increase revenue, plus it encourages them to make decent designs that people would actually be interested in paying for because of how good they look.

Largely, I agree with bhavv. The problem, as I've said before, with profitability in NCSoft's line is that they tend to be competing not just with WoW, but with themselves. I think their idea is to be a company that has an MMO on offer to fit every potential customer, but in practise this seems to lead to the production of a lot of niche offerings that they somehow hope will achieve mainstream sales.

Exactly. I waited and waited for Tabula Rasa, only to blech upon seeing the $40-some-odd price tag, PLUS the monthly fee. The lack of a fee is what got me into Guild Wars in the first place (after the woeful Savage flopped).

I bet that if NCSoft was to lift the monthly fee of TR, more people would play it. Unless they do that, Guild Wars is gonna drive Tabula Rasa, and any other fee-based game they try to roll out, into the dirt.

Shane

He didn't "exit", he resigned.

Maybe it was a "forced" resignation but, coming right after his return from space, the given story is fairly plausible. This guy is an RPG visionary, and he's probably rather be doing something new even if Rasa was a success.

It has to, they only have 5 million (or around there) copies sold (havent hit 6 million yet), if it didn't that would mean that everyone who has bought the game as created a new account for each chapter which we all know isn't possible.

Resign from what? Isn't NCsoft Austin(where Garriott was) being taken apart for the new NCsoft West?

It this release it was sad GW has 5,69 million copies and we know that the 5 million were hit in February this year. So they sold 690 000 copies between February and now. It is still pretty good for a supposedly dying game no?

That release probably isn't the exact time they hit exactly 5 million copies (I doubt they check constantly), they didn't "sell" 690,000 copies, since friend accounts aren't considered sold, etc. It's hard to say, but either way it isn't a lot of money.

...into space!

It was pretty obvious that he leaves NCSoft, when he and his brother weren't mentioned to have leading positions in the newly formed NCSoft West.

One last hype for NCSoft with the "send your DNA into space"-campaign and Richard Garriott appearing on the news and the Colbert Report.
"Recently fired Game Designer shot into space" wouldn't have been a headline for the liking of NCSoft. So they waited with the announcement.

The question that remains for me: what happens to Robert Garriott (head of NC Interactive)? Remember, without him risking to experiment there wouldn't be Guild Wars as we know it.

Tabula Rasa was a neat idea but I think Mass Effect pulled it off much better (better graphics as well).

Tabula Rasa was a fantastic game idea...

The programming/graphics/bugs/stuff just sucked so much the first round of beta testers already ignored their NDA and started warning people not to ever play that game. Unfortunatly, months later on the next beta round nobody had listened to those gamers and the same warnings were all over the internet again.

They should've learned from GW/WoW and all other succesfull games; listen to your gamers, they are the largest QA-team you can get and will even pay you for doing it.

He actually sold his shares in the company ages ago.. so he practically exited then. That's how he afforded the $20 million space flight.

Agreed. Even though it isn't an MMO, another very well done space RPG coming out at the same time definately didn't help TR. That, and well, it sucked on its own accord.

And DarkNecrid, I disagree. I do not think that 5.69 million figure includes friends and buddy trials. If it DID, then the numbers would probablly be higher (because we KNOW at least 5 million copies of the game were sold). Your assumption would mean there would have to be less then 690,000 friend keys EVER and less then that many games purchased between whenever they hit 5 million (sometime before they made the annoucnement in feburary) and now. Considering how many gold spam selling bots used to use free trial keys and were banned, I definatley think that your assumption is wrong.

Really, I just can't believe how dumb your logic was when you said that 5.69 million HAS to include buddy keys since GW hasn't sold 6 million copies. That just doesn't even make sense. Last I checked, 5 < 5.69 < 6. That works.