RE: Nancy Drew > Warhammer

[Mbj]

Folks,

These threads always make me chuckle a little bit. EA's earnings call is in a few weeks and after that, there will be a lot more clarity about our numbers. As always, I can't talk about it before the call but after that it will be fair game. There is no question that WotLK (like BC before it) and everything else swirling around us had an effect on PC game sales but we expected it would happen so we were not surprised. As I've said in interviews both before and the game launched, we knew going up against WoW was a marathon and not a sprint and we're still in it for the long-term. I can't give you sales numbers today but I can say this, that if I compared the number of new people trying WAR today than one month ago (or even 2 months ago), there are more people today than on Dec 17th or even Nov 17th (and this holds true for lots of other days as well, for those of you who think I'd engage in semantics ).

This, of course, will have no effect on the doomsayers/naysayers/etc. but the fact remains that we've come through one of the most competitive and challenging retail environments in the history of gaming (world economy in tatters, WoTLK, other great RPGs, etc.) and are still selling nicely even though we are a new subscription game. The fact is that almost everyone is hurting these days and calling us a failure because we didn't achieve WoW numbers (which I always said we wouldn't do) overnight is just silly. WoW didn't reach their peak subscriber numbers overnight and neither have we. If I thought that we had peaked already, I'd put WAR in maintenance mode and call it a day. Not only are we not doing that but we are investing heavily in WAR. The extent of some of that investment I'll be discussing soon.

Mark

Source

[Mbj]

Originally Posted by Evil_Mako

I can't give you sales numbers today but I can say this, that if I compared the number of new people trying WAR today than one month ago (or even 2 months ago), there are more people today than on Dec 17th or even Nov 17th (and this holds true for lots of other days as well, for those of you who think I'd engage in semantics ).

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Great to hear Mark, I know myself and other come off as "trolls" about the game but I think that’s just because we want the game to succeed and in our own way trying to light a fire under you guys to improve the game

I want to come back to the game, but I still need to see significant changes to tier 4/endgame.

Good luck and keep pushing the game forward ( a bit faster would be nice ) http://media.ign.com/boardfaces/9.gif

You're right about everything, especially the troll part!!!!

Seriously though, nobody wants WAR to succeed more than I do. Our studio has invested a lot of time, money and sweat into this game and we've got a lot of road ahead of us. We probably could do things a little faster but then we might repeat some of the mistakes we made with DAoC. We're trying to find a nice happy place between how we used to do things and how some other MMO makers do things. Unfortunately our winter break came, not surprisingly, at the end of the year and with all of EA being shut down for a while, it made it seem like we were being especially slow. I hope to help change that perception this week.

Mark

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[Mbj]

Originally Posted by Demorak

"after the earnings call I'll be happy to scream out what our sales were if it doesn't make the call."


And if it does 'make the call', that's the line that scares me.

Well, our CEO does have a lot to talk about. Been a rather busy Q4 for everybody. We're only one game out of a very large company.

Mark

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[Mbj]

Originally Posted by Pheace

In the great words of the late Phil Hartman who's still sorely missed: Kudos ^^

Fair enough, at least we'll have a new number to play with http://media.ign.com/boardfaces/9.gif

ps: Ow, will they be sales to retailers or sales to consumers btw? Or do you only get the former (for all I know, lol) http://media.ign.com/boardfaces/5.gif

Up to JR what he wants to talk about. I've got data from both of course. Whatever he wants to reveal, I can discuss afterward. However, if we get cut from the call, then I'll be talking about sales to consumers. We were prepared to do that last week but EA asked us to wait till after the call so we did.

Mark

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[Mbj]

Originally Posted by Pheace

Especially in a big company I can imagine that, best to have a report have as much news as they can, looks better http://media.ign.com/boardfaces/9.gif

Must be hard for you having to keep quiet about this stuff http://media.ign.com/boardfaces/27.gif

... or then again, given your past in law ... perhaps not, lol.

LOL. Keeping quiet is a *&*&* at times. Back in the DAoC days, I was happily shouting our numbers out all the times and would do so again. However, it's not just the "best to have a report..." thing but it's also an issue of disclosing financial information about a publicly traded company. All sorts of regulatory issues with that and when you have as many studios/GMs as EA as, it's better if people like me simply keep quiet and let the other folks focus on those issues. Now, this doesn't mean I don't bug them every so often to talk about them or let me talk about them but we're an EA studio and it's their decision and I do understand why it has to be the way it is.

Mark

Source

[Mbj]

Originally Posted by jasonbarker1981

Folks,

These threads always make me chuckle a little bit. EA's earnings call is in a few weeks and after that, there will be a lot more clarity about our numbers. As always, I can't talk about it before the call but after that it will be fair game. There is no question that WotLK (like BC before it) and everything else swirling around us had an effect on PC game sales but we expected it would happen so we were not surprised. As I've said in interviews both before and the game launched, we knew going up against WoW was a marathon and not a sprint and we're still in it for the long-term. I can't give you sales numbers today but I can say this, that if I compared the number of new people trying WAR today than one month ago (or even 2 months ago), there are more people today than on Dec 17th or even Nov 17th (and this holds true for lots of other days as well, for those of you who think I'd engage in semantics ).

This, of course, will have no effect on the doomsayers/naysayers/etc. but the fact remains that we've come through one of the most competitive and challenging retail environments in the history of gaming (world economy in tatters, WoTLK, other great RPGs, etc.) and are still selling nicely even though we are a new subscription game. The fact is that almost everyone is hurting these days and calling us a failure because we didn't achieve WoW numbers (which I always said we wouldn't do) overnight is just silly. WoW didn't reach their peak subscriber numbers overnight and neither have we. If I thought that we had peaked already, I'd put WAR in maintenance mode and call it a day. Not only are we not doing that but we are investing heavily in WAR. The extent of some of that investment I'll be discussing soon.

Mark


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So basicly what you are saying is...

- You laugh at those who tell the truth about the game
- You still refuse to give numbers
- You claim numbers are up, even though you had to merge servers, and server numbers have fallen by half on all tiers (for most servers) (we scan ourselves)
- You admit how hard it was to compete against WOTLK when they timed it to crush WAR soon after release
- You are counting resubscribes as new subscriptions (since we see 3 go out and 1 come in)
- You are investing heavily into WAR but cutting your CSR staff (which is the worst in mmo history) and cutting your testing staff

Real numbers are not in 750k, maybe sales to retail are that high, but accounts active per server are more like 1000-1500 per faction with many alt characters (lieing to your customers is not wise)

There is a lot that needs fixing and first and foremost should be your Customer Service. ITS TERRIBLE!


Edit: where is the statement you promised well over a week ago?

Nice try. But let's go to Double Jeopardy where the scores can really change shall we?

You said "- You laugh at those who tell the truth about the game"
No, I laugh when people make stuff up and say it's true. I haven't laughed (in a mocking way) at any one individual. OTOH, some of the things that have been said, especially in this thread, are pretty funny.

You said " - You still refuse to give numbers"
Yeah, I'm weird about wanting to do my job, follow instructions of our CEO and not violate any rules/regulations regarding improper disclosure of financial information for a publicly traded company. Call me crazy. Try asking Blizzard to give your their exact and current (using an old release doesn't count) sub numbers by posting on the WoW forums and let me know how that works out. Financial information is released at specific times by PTCs and EA is no different. Sorry if that doesn't meet your needs but that's how things work.

You said " - You claim numbers are up, even though you had to merge servers, and server numbers have fallen by half on all tiers (for most servers) (we scan ourselves)"
No, I said that more people are trying the game on a daily basis today than two months ago on our NA servers, that's a fact. I also know for a fact that our server numbers have not fallen by half across all active servers.

You said " - You admit how hard it was to compete against WOTLK when they timed it to crush WAR soon after release"
We knew it was going to be tough to compete with WoW, what a shock eh? That's why we had plans for things to go in after WotLK's release.

You said " - You are counting resubscribes as new subscriptions (since we see 3 go out and 1 come in)"
Umm, no. I am not counting resubscribes as new subscriptions since a) I have never talked about subscriptions; b) the numbers I talked about where specifically "new people trying WAR" not people coming back. I have those numbers too but that's not what I was referring to.

You said" - You are investing heavily into WAR but cutting your CSR staff (which is the worst in mmo history) and cutting your testing staff"
That's your opinion (about our CSR service) of course and one that I disagree with wholeheartedly.

You said "Edit: where is the statement you promised well over a week ago?"
Go back and read my statement, I said it was coming later in towards the end of the month, I never said it was coming last week.

I don't know if you are trying to pick a fight but when you have seemingly misquoted what I've said on purpose multiple times, I'm not sure what to believe.

Mark

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[Mbj]

Originally Posted by Phar0z

You gave server populations for DAoC.

You remember that game, right? You know, the game that gave you guys all your success? I'm sure you remember orgins right? Remember all that hype you generated for it to get all your old customers worked up and then have been SILENT for months ontop of months? Oh come on Mark, is EA stopping you from commenting on that, too?

Yeah, DAoC, back when Mythic could do their own thing! and have a website with populations! and weren't blocked by the 'CEO' and 'EA' and all that 'big head office stuff'! and actually had class leads! and customer service people! Huzzah Mark!

Seriously, how much more can you blame on EA? "I can't give numbers because of EA, I can't talk about this because of EA, we were shut down in the end of december because of EA" Are you going to blame the lack of customer service people on EA too? How about the lack of forum responses and class leads? That all EAs fault too?

This what you get for selling out to the game destroyer that is EA. You'll get no sympathy from anyone, especially your diehard customers that supported you throughout DAoC and that believed in all your hype and lies about Warhammer and Origins.

Umm, the only thing I've used my being part of EA for as a reason for silence has to do with financial information/HR issues. Like I said in my previous posts, I can't comment on those issues and "calling me out" on that sort of stuff is pointless. As a GM for EA my job is to follow corporate policy regarding those issues and I plan on continuing to do that. I also continue to try to talk them into letting out more information but again, there's a world of difference between running a privately held company (Mythic) and a publicly traded one.

In terms of CSRs, well, we had more CSRs for WAR at launch than we did for DAoC. I spent a number of nights in CS, like I did with DAoC, and these guys/gals were busting their butts on the game. We banned gold sellers, dealt with tons of player requests and overall, they did a fine job. I am truly sorry you apparently think that our CS for WAR is worse than DAoC, but our team doesn't think so and frankly we were getting yelled at here for CS for DAoC as well yet we know that our CS support for DAoC was the best around. In terms of team leads, that program had both successes and failures (for which we also get yelled at) and we didn't continue it for that reason. Some of our team leads were great but many others weren't and they hurt the game's development. In terms of Origins, I've had no comment on it because I've got nothing to say on it yet. Frankly, I've never had anything to say about Origins so I'm not sure how *I* could hyped it or lied about it.

Oh, and the "we were shut down in December thing" sorry but EA was indeed shut down and my team deserved a vacation since almost none of them have had one either before or after WAR launched. What should I have done, told them nope, sorry, not only am I not going to shutdown the studio, I'm going to cancel all vacations? They worked hard and that time off and more. And FYI, some of them came in anyway and I know that since I was there a few times as well.

I'm not looking for a single bit of sympathy from you or anyone else here. However, when someone says that I need to disclose the numbers or answer a question about an HR issue and I respond by saying "I can't say anything" that is not asking for sympathy but simply telling the truth as I always do. I'm sorry if you seem to think that I have a duty to answer every question that is asked of me or when I say that EA has a corporate policy on some issues that I am looking for sympathy but that's not the case. If I don't respond, I'm accused of avoiding the issue, if I say why I can't respond then you say I'm using EA as an excuse. The only other option left to me would be to ignore what I've been told to do and while I work for EA I won't do that. As I told EA before they acquired Mythic, I'll never lie to you or for you and to their credit, they have never asked me to do so just as I won't ever lie here or elsewhere. Asking me not to talk about the numbers/layoffs except through EA corporate communication folks is a fair request and one EA's policy is followed by every publicly traded company I've ever heard of in the US.

Mark

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[Mbj]

Originally Posted by ZartanAround

mark,
maybe instead of getting your panties in a bunch you could get someone to actually pr the game.

just a though http://media.ign.com/boardfaces/32.gif

/sanya?

LOL. My panties aren't in a bunch at all. Back in the DAoC days, well, that happened a bit too often but not now. In terms of PRing the game, not my intent here but rather to respond to certain posts and chat a bit. I leave most of the real PR these days to guys like Paul and Jeff and have done so for a while.

Mark

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[Mbj]

Originally Posted by DarkMelvist13

Hello Mark,

To take the discussion away briefly from random ranting at you/Mythic/WAR/life in general, I wanted to ask you about a few other things.

1. Are you planning to revisit your blog sometime? I enjoyed reading it and getting an 'inside view' to the game industry.

2. A while back you stated that server transfers (paid/by choice) were in the works but not before the free transfers ended. Do you have any new information on this topic? I want to move my Blackguard from Dark Crag to Praag. Also, can one transfer to different server types--such as to Roleplaying from Core or Open-RvR or some other combination?

3. One of the things I always enjoyed about DAoC was the ability to re-customise a character's appearance. It was a minor thing overall I suppose, but I'm one of those nuts who enjoys minor things like that option. Are there any plans to allow appearance customisation in WAR from the character select screen?

4. As I'm sure you're aware, WoW offers character name changes. I have a name on one of my R40s that I'd prefer to use now on a new character on the same server--but I don't want to have to delete my R40 to do this, of course. I doubt that CSRs will change/reset a character's name on request (I sent in an appeal two days ago and didn't receive a response, so I'm guessing that is a 'no'); will there be an option to change character names in the future?


Also, don't let the negativity get you down, Mark, or drive you off of these forums (or WHA's, or any other fansite forums out there). Trolls or truly upset customers abound. But there are of course those of us who are quite pleased with the way things are going and are playing contentedly rather than posting frequently. Hope everything turns out OK for EA and Mythic in these awful economic times.

1. Are you planning to revisit your blog sometime? I enjoyed reading it and getting an 'inside view' to the game industry.

Yes. Unfortunately the last few months have been really, really busy and stressful and I haven't had the urge to write. Some of the events of this past fall (nothing to do with WAR actually) hit me a little harder than I expected they would and that really kept me away from the blog. WAR's going LIVE and everything I've been doing on it since, has also taken time and energy away. I should have expected this but after 3 years working on WAR, once the game launched some of the adrenaline that kept me up all night reading and writing started to fade. I do want to get back to it but I don't know if it will be this month. I'd like to take a vacation sometime too but I keep pushing that off (2+ years so far). I promised myself I would in December but as usual, I didn't.

2. A while back you stated that server transfers (paid/by choice) were in the works but not before the free transfers ended. Do you have any new information on this topic? I want to move my
Blackguard from Dark Crag to Praag. Also, can one transfer to different server types--such as to Roleplaying from Core or Open-RvR or some other combination?

We can do paid transfers but I didn't want to put them into effect until all our free transfers were done. I didn't want to end up charging people for something that a few weeks/month later were then made free. I'll talk to the team this week and see where things stand.

3. One of the things I always enjoyed about DAoC was the ability to re-customise a character's appearance. It was a minor thing overall I suppose, but I'm one of those nuts who enjoys minor things like that option. Are there any plans to allow appearance customisation in WAR from the character select screen?

Yes, no timetable yet.

4. As I'm sure you're aware, WoW offers character name changes. I have a name on one of my R40s that I'd prefer to use now on a new character on the same server--but I don't want to have to delete my R40 to do this, of course. I doubt that CSRs will change/reset a character's name on request (I sent in an appeal two days ago and didn't receive a response, so I'm guessing that is a 'no'); will there be an option to change character names in the future?

Yes, also no timetable yet since I haven't discussed this issue with anyone yet. I'll do that this week as well.

Also, don't let the negativity get you down, Mark, or drive you off of these forums (or WHA's, or any other fansite forums out there). Trolls or truly upset customers abound. But there are of course those of us who are quite pleased with the way things are going and are playing contentedly rather than posting frequently. Hope everything turns out OK for EA and Mythic in these awful economic times.

Thanks and no worries. I expect negativity here and elsewhere just as all other MMORPGs have had since they first launched. WoW's forums reaffirmed a number of very important lesson about forums that I learned from our experiences with DAoC. Unfortunately, some of those lessons were very hard won and voided some other lessons I learned from the early days of online gaming on places like GEnie. So as always I try to chat, I listen, I read but I also don't overreact (well, I try hard not to). I do thank you for the kind words and thoughts though.

Mark

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[Mbj]

Originally Posted by west.side

thanks for the answers mark

what are you doing up so late btw

OMW to bed now! Cya!

Mark

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[Mbj]

Originally Posted by Vertexy

...

Anyway, I think Mythic hoped that warhammer would sell better (that is outta question).

Actually, I'm glad you said that. While I can't talk about what my expectations for WAR sales were as part of EA, (yet) I realized I can talk about something, and that is what my expectations were for WAR sales when Mythic was independent. In pre-EA interviews I was very clear about where I expected WAR to land in the pantheon of MMORPGs. I said that I thought that if WAR ended up as the #2 MMORPG behind WoW I'd be quite satisfied. I also said that I did not expect WAR to hit 1M subs in NA/Europe and that I told EA, a number of times, that they had to expect lower numbers than that if they were going to buy us. Now, since that time we spent more money on the game so I had hoped our numbers would be higher than my initial forecast but I never said I expected we'd easily do 1M subs. While you always hope you game/book/film will sell more copies (except for some titles that exceeded expectations), I can say quite honestly that our sales in Sept/Oct exceeded expectations and we also said publicly that WAR had the best pre-sales of any EA PC title ever. That's not too shabby. Do I wish Nov/Dec had been stronger, of course but going against WotLK, economy, a plethora of other great game titles, etc. made that more challenging. I expect that when all is said and done that WAR will end up as having sold more boxes in its first year than any other MMORPG, other than WoW, to date. I believe we are there already but since I don't have AoC's numbers I can't be sure. Hopefully that will become clearer over time.

Again, in a few weeks I'll be able to go into a bit more detail.


Mark

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[Mbj]

Originally Posted by .Yamon

And that, unfortunately, will be followed by the largest percentage loss in subs vs. initial sales.........

Nope, not true at all. The nice thing is that I have both the DAoC numbers and WAR's numbers so I can compare the two.

Mark

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