Do you have any concept of how much funding ngmoco has in their coffers? Also, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss their pricing model. Games like Epic Pet Wars and Mafia Wars are supposedly making buckets full of dollars a day using the exact same concept.
No, but a number would help... I still think it's not enough to support almost EVERY single iDevice user that has reliable Internet connection.
But they sell things that are necessary (or almost necessary) to advance in the game. This makes it so you get more 'credits' for doing the same work! You can even play without the energy packs and still have as much fun. I doubt even HALF of the iDevice users are that hardcore. Now if they sold purchase-only game essentials, that would get some money. However, they already said they wouldn't do that.
$15,000,000 to date. And if every single iDevice user ended up downloading their game I think ngmoco would be dancing in the streets outside their office.
Why I think it`s a risky move for ngmoco is that Eliminate is made for iPhone and not for console/pc. There are a lot of games available for iPhone and a lot of them have been hugely successful, but the problem is it`s still is a casual gamers device. People dont take out there iDevices and start playing games for hours. Most of them probably game for maybe less than an hour a day (probably even less). For this MMO model to be successful you need gamers who are willing to put hours on end in this single game, which I really doubt too many people would be doing as iPhone certainly isnt the best option for such gamers. A console/pc will suit their needs much better. Even the few who do game that much on iPhone will soon be distracted by some new game very soon. So for the majority of iPhone gamers, free might turn out to be good enough gameplay as they`d be playing that much only even if they had paid $7+ for it. So it`d be loss for ngmoco if these gamers dont feel purchasing the energy necessary and ngmoco dont get even the money they were willing to shell out for them earlier. Having said that, kudos to ngmoco for trying out something really unique for the iPhone. I really hope this game turns out to be hugely successful for them. We do really need a good Online FPS for iPhone.
Well, either way it doesnt affect me much. I'd only play this game for 10 minutes a day at most. So I'm happy its free at all and being free it will have a lot of ppl online, even more awesomeness.
Yeah, this is good for people who play for short amounts, but for others who play for a long time, not so much.
Another thing to consider is Eliminate is going to require you to create a Plus+ login, driving the adoption of that platform forward even more. It really doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what ngmoco is trying to accomplish here, and it won't surprise me at all a few years down the road when someone like EA or Activision buys ngmoco for hundreds of millions of dollars because of their massive userbase in games like Eliminate and on their Plus+ service. At which point everyone involved in ngmoco makes a boat load of money and Neil, Alan, and the rest of the crew start again with even more investor money in a fresh company.
So far all your comments make me think that ELIMINATE will be just a publicity stunt and then will be dropped. What if the in-app purchases don't work well? How long until NGmoco gets tired of lisinglass money and drops the game?
I think you're misunderstanding this entirely. Maybe i can put in a different view. By not charging money they have the potential to attract all 70 million iPhone users. (potential, not that it will actually happen) Now, if all of them pay for at least ONE life pack assuming its at .99 cents. That's an easy 70 million revenue (nevermind profit for now). Thats a lot of dough lol. And of course they're trying to make this game as best as they can with updates in mind to make it more addicting and so that people will play more and more. For me, the iDevice has completely replaced my other gaming habits. I hardly touch my mame emulator from the computer or my console games. (just arcade, cant let go of mvc2) I think, THAT is what ngomoco is counting on. I mean they are an iDevice only company. With this, I really think that they'll make a lot of money in the app-store. And if this works, I can definitely see more games like this in the future. I actually hope they make bucketfulls of money so that we get this iPhone exclusive dev to make more awesome games for us. (assuming Eliminate is as awesome as its supposed to be) As for the casual gamer issue, i dont think for this game you need people to play hours and hours. It sounds liek the deathmatches are meant to last just a few minutes. Rather, I think they want it to be like a fix for peope. I can just imagine people taking "Eliminate" breaks, i mean I already do that with online chess. All in all i think this is gonna be a big hit.
35 million people playing their game would be triple the amount of people playing World of Warcraft along with dwarfing the number of registered twitter users. (Which is much more than the active userbase.) Hell, 35 million downloads of Eliminate even makes the sales figures of games like Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 look completely insignificant. If they can build a userbase as large as you guys are suspecting, ngmoco will never need to worry about money ever again.
yea as soon as they announced their plans, its like a lightshow went on in my head. I can see a lot of possibilites with this, TONS.
Yeah, with that, they wouldn't have to work anymore. I think this will do really well. Good job by ngmoco.
How much server space does it take fir 35 MILLION people to run this game? How much would all these servers cost + upkeep + updates?
guys, people WILL buy the energy packs look at games like mafia wars. People spend money to be higher level in a game. They will do the same here. There are many MMO games that require money, hardocre players buy it. This is a great business deal. with all those customers chances are that more people are going to get addicted and buy energy packs. Oh and stop complaining about the "ooh but now we have to buy energy packs every 10 minutes". You dont deserve to be on this website if you say that. YOU DONT NEED TO BUY THESE PACKS. you can play i think like 10 or so games, each game being 3-4 minutes. thats like 30-40 minutes. They recharge every 90 minutes. Oh look at that you can maybe have a life in between those time periods... Or you can play casually with other players withuot earning credits. which means ur improving ur skill, just not ur level. which , in my opinion, is what matters. k im done ranting
It doesn't matter. If they have 35 million people playing this game, they will need to bar the doors to keep investors from kicking them down to give them as much money as they need to keep the project going. Have you somehow missed how much money Twitter, Digg, and all these other online services that have nowhere near 35 million users have been able to drum up?
pretty much exactly what i am thinking. ill be interested to see how the ranking system works - like COD or mario kart?
