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Turbine Lands $30 Million in Venture Capital
Gamasutra has word that MMOG maker Turbine, developer of AC, AC2, DDO, and MEO, has succeeded in raising another round of venture capital for current and future projects. From the article: "The company has recently been strengthening its publishing and rights hold on its internally-developed products. It assumed complete control of development and publishing on Middle Earth Online, after finalizing a deal with Tolkien Enterprises and VU Games, and also took full control of Asheron's Call from Microsoft following the company's first round of financing. Of Turbine's major new MMO worlds, Dungeons & Dragons Online is due to launch later in 2005, and The Lord Of The Rings: Middle Earth Online will launch some time in 2006."
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I'm not so sure how Turbine managed to get so much funding, given how Ascheron's Call 2 has a pretty dismal showing in the MMORPG market -- if you take a look at the the lastest MMORPG charts, you can see that although Ascheron's Call 1 peaked at 120,000 subscribers, Ascheron's Call 2 only peaked at ~50,000 subscribers, and dropped precipitously after May 2003.
Just as my two cents, I'd prefer to see funding go to the makers of Anarchy Online, Planetside, or Eve Online, which are also indie, but have a much better subscriber base & track record.
I don't know, I'd prefer seeing people with attractive licenses get the good money to do something awesome.
The licenses are what draw customers.
I know I'd rather play Dragonlance Online than Dragon Saga VII Online.
Maybe that's just me?
From a investor standpoint unless MEO will release shortly or during a theatrical release of the Hobbit I doubt it's going to gain much following.
DND Online better be damn perfect or the players will go back to paper.
The expansion pack of AC2 has not sold any copies at best buy they've been sitting there doing nothing. And server pop's are still in the 200's and from a players perspective when I did play if you was not already level 55+ then you have nobody to play with. The game was stupid to make things where high level char's could not really help lower level characters so there's no incentive to help people.
Waste of money IMO. People that were burned by Turbine will not go back.
rylin: The licenses are what draw customers.
I'm positive that licensing draws customers in traditional non-MMORPG games -- KOTOR I & II are a great example of this.
However, the MMORPG market is totally different -- Star Wars Galaxies, the Matrix Online, and The Sims Online are all examples of MMORPGs that have powerful licenses behind them, but are relatively unsucessful when compared to Lineage, Everquest, or Dark Age of Camelot, which aren't backed by big-name licenses.
Going back to Turbine, they *do* have big-name licenses for their upcoming MMORPGS (Dungeons & Dragons / Lord of the Rings), but I doubt that this can be used to predict a subsequent success.
Planetside was and is a Sony Online Entertainment production.
As for Turbine, the real question to ask isn't how many subscribers did the game have, but what was the return on investment for the game? We know that games like WoW and EQ make money hand over fist, and that the bulk of their expenses in the long term roughly scale with the number of users (there may be an economy of scale at work, making a large number of subscribers even more profitable, though). MMOGs also have an advantage over non-served games: if the long-term income for a MMOG from subscriptions is high enough, it can even make up for a shortfall in game box sales, if the servers are kept running long enough. Non-served games can't do that - if the game flops, the company loses money because the box sales didn't offset the initial production costs.
This brings up another thought - that for all those companies that went under because of the very rough seas in the games industry, at least a few of them could have been saved, and could have made those games they always wanted to make (and on their own terms, too) if they just have a running MMOG in their portfolio to ensure long-term company profitability.
In any case, I'm glad to see Turbine taking steps to make itself less dependent on its publisher(s). Internet distribution is another important (perhaps the next for Turbine?) step in making one's game development company self-sufficient.
Asheron's Call 2 did suck. It had a horrible combat system. Asheron's Call 1 was fun though, and the action elements found in that game can't be found in other MMOGS. I feel action MMOG is just the beginning of something big you'll see over the next 10-20 years.
God spoke to me.
There is a difference here you are not metnioning. SWG an MO are games derived from movies. With some notable exceptions, games derived from movies haven't done too well overall. There are a number of reasons for this.
This logic may apply to Middle Earth Online. It has been published in book form and varios movies have been made derived from it. There was even a pen and paper RPG for it I think.
I think the problem with developing interactive entertainment from movies or books is that the story is already told. Especially in the case of the Matrix or Lord of the Rings, you know the ending. Gaming is usually about experiencing something new, with some element of unkown results.
However, Dungeons and Dragons is a game, and the biggest RPG ever in any format. If there were one license/brand I could think of that would have a draw it would be that one.
I know that the parent was a joke, but the excessive use of acronyms in the story is still pretty confusing. The games being referred to here are:
AC = Asheron's Call
DDO = Dungeons & Dragons Online
MEO = Middle Earth Online
A MMOG, of course, is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game.
I don't know how Turbine does it. That's like their 3rd or 4th round of VC funding for the company, and AC1 and AC2 were mediocre at best. I agree that DDO and LotRO are powerful franchises, but if someone gave a company like Playnet (makers of WWII Online) that much money they could go out and buy the rights to make games based on powerful franchises, too.
Bruce
One way to sell Mediocre games... plaster a big name onto the box. EA does that all the time.
Asherons Call 1 was ok, but not really that interesting either, although it did not have zones and campers and they tried to push a storyline into it, it did nothing to attract the casual player. The average mission was try to get into a dungeon and get an artefact or die and be reborn outside. There was nothing more in there and the combat system mostly was hack and slay. The only thing which prevented things like campers and looters was, that there never were so many subscribers that it became necessary to camp. The biggest problem was the lack of banks, many people just kept 3-4 mule characters just to keep important things in case of a death.
Obviously this investment wasn't based on Turbines track record of producing and delivering MMORPGs. They have pushed D&D and MEO back many times, the latter falling all the way back to 06.
This is an investment based on the perceived viability of these two titles regardless of who produces them. Considering that Turbine raised this money indicates they blew through the previous 25m received less than two years ago.
Apparently Turbine has a very good package they show VCs, most likely relying on some ignorance on the VCs part. It is very easy to lay claim to two "acclaimed" MMORPGs as there are more than enough review sites to get praise from - meaning someone out there will kiss your ass for the right payment.
Turbine is supposed to deliver D&DO this year. It will be an instanced based system. The problem they now face is that Guild Wars, also instanced based, is already released. So, not only do they have to overcome a released game that does not charge a monthly fee they also have to overcome their reputation among gamers.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The story's told, but those worlds (Star Wars, Matrix and Lord of the Rings) are so captivating in and of themselves that people want to experience living their own lives in those universes, which is where the attraction of those MMORPGs comes in. Granted, SWG and MO sucked, so hopefuly MEO does a good job of it.