The Atysian Subscription

[kay22626]

Not even close to covering costs... I'll use US dollars as thats what I'm familiar with. I've been involved in the games industry over the past year or so and have been in pretty close contact with several other software engineers, both those working on games and those who are not (to lend some credibility to the following).

A decent computer programmer will be getting about $60,000 a year (usually more, but I'm being conservative).
That's $5,000 a month per programmer.
6 programmers x 5,000 = $30,000 a month for developmers

CEO and Admin pay are always more and are nearly always in the 6-7 figure range (depending on company size)
We'll say $100,000 for a CEO who does a lot of work and does a lot of the HR work themselves.
That's another $8340 a month. Total so far is $38,340 a month.

Servers. Oh this is gonna be a biggie. MMORPG had a discussion a while back that basically concluded that to run a MMO server cost about $5,000 per 500 clients. Assuming your 2000 clients, that's $20,000 for running the server. Add another $3,000 for a solid connection to an internet backbone and another $1,000 or so for tech support on the servers and you're looking at $24,000 a month to keep the game live. To put this cost in perspective, WoW costs about $100 million a year in hosting fees. Granted they are much much larger, but you can also assume that they have much greater bargaining power to get better rates.
Running total is now at $62,340 a month.

so, 16,000 euros in game subs fees = $20,892.80
meaning $41,447.20 short a month.
ouch.

Now I don't think Ryzom has 6 developers currently. I think its more likely about 2 (if that), so there is some money saved, but still no where near being close to profitable. And that is the goal. They want to make money with the game so simply drawing even isn't good enough. Nevrax and GameForge were both unable to make Ryzom profitable and both companies had the advantage of a larger player pool to begin with.

The main reason they are potentially going to offer this new sub length is because the company is desperate for money. They get the cash now and can invest it or develop the game enough to gain other investors. In all probability, SW is having a lot of issues in getting people to invest in Ryzom. And since the game isn't profitable (never has been), SW is facing the uphill battle of getting investors to throw money at a risky investment while losing money to hosting fees and employee salaries. And the truly sad part is that any investor worth their salt would take one look at Ryzom and say "no way". Its never turned a profit, its losing its client base, it has no visibility on the MMO scene and is quickly becoming outdated.

According to your estimate, they must have already spent half a million dollars since they started running the servers for free and implementing fixes and doing updates. Even if you cut everything in half given the game was not "live" and it would still be 250k.
If anything you wrote in your post was half true, the game would've been closed long ago.


"Only those who attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible."

[kaetemi]

to run a MMO server cost about $5,000 per 500 clients. Assuming your 2000 clients, that's $20,000 for running the server. Add another $3,000 for a solid connection to an internet backbone and another $1,000 or so for tech support on the servers and you're looking at $24,000 a month to keep the game live.

You've got some cheap tech support, and expensive servers running then. I think you got some bad numbers. Ofcourse, if you got that from a business discussion, that's normal, because they'll only get half the budget they ask for.

Anyways, on topic, I do believe that Ryzom is capable of somehow staying alive for years to come. However, I currently have the impression that they keep delaying what they're announcing (billing, events) while they are actually releasing what they're not announcing (fixes, etc), which does give a bad view on consistent transparency.

[totnkopf]

According to your estimate, they must have already spent half a million dollars since they started running the servers for free and implementing fixes and doing updates. Even if you cut everything in half given the game was not "live" and it would still be 250k.
If anything you wrote in your post was half true, the game would've been closed long ago.

If you think they've not spent at least that 250k then you're fooling yourself. This is a business... they bought the game to make money from. And to be honest, they bought a broken product. Before people will invest in it, they need to fix it while also maintaining the current player base. That takes a lot of cash to do and no company has been able to make it work yet.

And what I've written is pretty accurate. The game has been on the brink of closing twice and has bankrupted two companies.

You've got some cheap tech support, and expensive servers running then. I think you got some bad numbers. Ofcourse, if you got that from a business discussion, that's normal, because they'll only get half the budget they ask for.

yea, I went light on the tech support, but it evens out if the servers are overpriced. I'm unsure as to the actual numbers of the hosting. The numbers were what MMORPG.com decided was about the average cost so there will be some variation. Also I didn't add utilities, rent for an office, computer equipment, etc to all that, so you can assume that the number is at least those stated, if not more.

[kay22626]

If you think they've not spent at least that 250k then you're fooling yourself.

I sure hope you are right!
Because if they had 250k to spend on keeping Ryzom free for so long, it means they are loaded with money so once the legal issues are out of the way, Ryzom will thrive!

[fadebait]

Firstly, every indication I've found is that winch gate is just an investor. I don't know why everyone decided to call the owners winch gate just cause the domain was registered by wg. Calling them wg just confuses things.

Erm, read the EULA, perhaps? It makes it pretty explicit that the game is being run by Winch Gate. Spiderweb Int. has completely evaporated, in rather suspicious circumstances.



As to totnkopf's numbers, I too don't think they are right - a financially struggling company is unlikely to pay its CEO $100K, nor its developers $60K.
As others have noted, the numbers for tech support and server hosting are also wrong. Ryzom is annecdotally run on a (or several) debian cluster(s). While not incredibly difficult, you do need someone with a reasonable amount of knowledge to run such a system. Some kid straight out of a compsci degree isn't going to manage. Which means you need to pay for them - and they are extremely unlikely to work for minimum wage.



Someone else postulated that new accounts aren't able to vote - but I was under the understanding that this is now fixed and that all accounts, new, old and old but lapsed can all post. If I'm wrong then any speculation about subscriber numbers becomes meaningless.

If I'm right however you can dress it up however nicely you want, but 400 subscribers is just not enough to run an MMO of this type. Sorry about that. MMOs of this type are expensive to run, far more so than 400 subscribers are likely to be able to pay for.
Here's a sobering thought for you - when the decision to close Tabula Rasa was made it reportedly had around 70k subscribers. Sure TR had larger debts than Ryzom, but to imagine that 400 (or even 1200) subscribers is enough is just silly.


To those of you critisising this attitude as excessively negative - I'm not saying that Ryzom will die. I'm saying that Ryzom needs more subscribers to live. What's going to get those subscribers? Communication, action, content. What will lose the few subscribers we do have? No communication, no new content, continued secrecy.

We are currently getting the latter, and are fast on our way to the final resting place of Ryzom. It's not impossible to see a turnaround - but it does seem to be getting less and less likely. Afterall if they were going to start talking to us, surely they would already have done so?


It is possible that the owners of Ryzom have enough assets to keep it afloat on their own, without any real subscriber revenue, and the will to do so. Were this the case, they might be holding off on roadmaps and communication until they are in a position to be able to answer every question that we might ask. This is possible, although I do wonder why they think this is clever. Alienating customers rarely a good buisness makes, and certainly there's nothing more alienating than a total lack of response.
Furhtermore, were this the case, then I would find this poll immensely odd. If you don't need the cash, don't stir up dissent by asking for it.

[totnkopf]

As to totnkopf's numbers, I too don't think they are right - a financially struggling company is unlikely to pay its CEO $100K, nor its developers $60K.

I don't disagree with you here and the the listing of numbers I had was for Amana/Nikopols statement that a company with 6 devs could easily be paid by 16k Euros. It simply isn't possible to have that large of a work force with so few subs and still make a profit.
There will always be debate when it comes down to the exact numbers, but its safe to say that the current number of subs is no where near where it needs to be to cover running costs. That means that the current owners are losing cash and so far have seen none coming in. It would appear the Ryzom 'curse' will be striking another company as they realize they have a product that simply can't turn a profit in its current form.

[elthunim]

You're all making me depressed.
Thanks.

[meryan]

You're all making me depressed.
Thanks.

* hugs * Better now?

[faedyne]

Even if it's not much money coming in, I'm wondering if it was because they couldn't get billing up, or because they didn't want to because it might discourage players at lack of changes to the game.

Ah well. What can you do? I think letting ideas about where the game will go in the future effect how you play now is misleading thinking.
Games aren't an investment. They're just for a bit of enjoyment. (Well, people are free to treat the game and by extension their real lives however they want, but I think there's quite a consensus that it's not healthy to do that.)
When you give it up, it's gone, even if you might be comforted in the knowledge that all your work still virtually exists somewhere, the truth is that when you stop playing, it's over.
So keep playing, keep having fun. Play because you want to play, not because you want to master a skill or whatever.
and I'm not just saying that because I want to counteract the discouraging talk of the game failing again. I think people should try and keep this in mind even in a successful game.

I should take my own advice. I've been playing like crazy the past month instead of taking my time and enjoying it.

[katriell]

Even if it's not much money coming in, I'm wondering if it was because they couldn't get billing up, or because they didn't want to because it might discourage players at lack of changes to the game.

Lack of changes?