Financing Idea Options

[anthrorob]

I originally posted this at mmorpg.com but here it is again:

This is the second game that I was watching with in anticipation to get cancelled. The other was WARHAMMER ONLINE.

Sadly, having vision does not equate to having financial backing. The sudden announcement may have been due to personal reasons of individuals at the head of the company. Ultimately you need financial backing today, since you have to compete with SONY (EQ2) and BLIZZARD (WoW) whose large coporate backing.

Look at AC and AC2. Bought back from a neglectful Microsoft, they (I imagine) just barely support themselves.

My theory is: Mutable Realms knew they were unable to further finance it, but by going "live" beta, they could show would-be backers that they had what it takes (which they may have, we may never know.) Alas, sans funding, the game was doomed.

If anyone is out there at Mutable Realms or the Old Warhammer Online folks, reading this, I have a huge suggestion.

With all the hype generated, try to sell private shares of the company to PLAYERS, say $10 a share. For every share they get a free month when the game goes public and a space in Beta if they buy X number of shares. Then either offer to buy back shares (at X% increase) or offer dividends after X number of years. While a lot of MMO players are tight fisted fools who want something for nothing, there are a number of more loyal folks who may send off some dough to own part of the company and have a little voice in what is done.

IF oh say 50% (a hugely unrealistic number) of the 50,000 beta testers invested $20 then Mutable Realms would have a $500,000 cash injection.

Any Devs, etc of these games or others feel free to contact me.

Anthrorob

[Vampirian]

We will be looking at all options once we get to that stage. As for now, there is NO such thing as a development/or theory stage being closed.

[ysu]

Read the first post, he has a theory, that MR couln't finance it.
Then read the news. Marc stated pretty cleanly the reason for shutdown.

This is what I mean here:
you won't be able to do anything with that, they'll not revive the project because based on their calcualtions it won't sustain itself. And especially not with a few dollars per player based on a few thousand players.
Be realistic, these guys have invested hundreds of thousands, maybe million dollars in tha past 3 years...just look at what musicians they had for the game.

[Belsteak]

i think you don't really know all what that cost...
Do you think $500.000 is enough ? You will not have enough for one year payement for a staff of 32+ people... I will say maybee 6 month max....
Do you know the price for only one person ? Do you know the cost of server maintenance ? ...
You have to generate more money than that to be realistic.

[Noldar]

With these numbers, you have 25,000 people with 2 free months of playtime. At the current rate of 12.99 (averageish), that adds up to a lose all the same. Also, you need to hire an accounant or a financial planner to work this all out. Along the lines of the company buying back stock, you'd have to work with the paperwork involved.

Then what happens if you have these 25,000 people who paid money and the game collapses, you'll have those people wanting their money back and have a huge hassle ahead of yourself. A game tried to do this (blanking on title) They sold merchandise that would gaurentee you a spot Beta if you bought it and went under (rumored to not even have started) and quite a few upset customers wanting their money back.

I think this idea would be a timesink and if all ends badly (which you have to except) will blow up.

[DeadPaladin]

they should have had enough money:

500,000 x 15 = 7.5million per month
500,000 x 10 = 5.0million per month

i think that would have been more than enough to support them....and imo it would have gained even more people over time.