PvP made DCUO more money than PVE

I spent way more money on the game back when pvp was actually playable (2011-2013) than i spent in the 10 years after they broke it combined. devs do not realize it but it was pvp that was the big money maker. you would do pve just to farm sp to get skill points. i was full member back then but after they broke pvp I have not gone full member since. how about you guys?

That was literally my only reason for playing pve was for feats * which kinda wasn’t really needed that much in pvp which is what made it even more balanced* but usually I’d just run with league mates or anyone who needed a filler to Q something ig I wasn’t doing anything I’d help. I spent a lot and I mean A LOT on pvp power respecs and all the other respecs. Pretty crazy when you think about it

Exactly why I laugh when people try to claim "PVP doesn't make money." I was the same kind of player in those days. Only continued paying a membership for the sole purpose of grinding those PVE feats to become that much greater in PVP. People always seem to ignore the intent of why people spend the money that they do. In our case, that's PVP making the game money.

I wouldn't go as far to say that PVP has made more money than PVE, though. Still, the impact of PVP towards generating revenue is nowhere near as minimal as those people have tried to make it seem. It's sad the potential in it still fails to be realized.

totally agree. maybe i was going a bit to far saying it made more money but it was still a massive part of the income for dcuo. when people are competitive like pvp players are they will spend the cash to get the advantage on one another. the devs underestimated how valuable that competitive spirit is to the game and how much money they made from it.

No it doesn't...

PVP isnt a money maker in MMOs. It was certainly a high caliber of play at the time but there isnt a successful MMO on the planet that provides PVP over PVE. PVE is where the money is, not PVP. If you have the Account numbers to prove such a thing, I'll be glad to see it but if the only rhetoric is "I spent such and such dollars" doesnt mean it was a money maker. Obviously its possibly one that the Devs, nor even DC/WB, want to invest in. I would liek to see an update or even a BP system with it but as MMOs go, PVE brings in the money, not PVP.

considering how many players left after PvP broke i think it is fair to say the devs lost money.

Seems to me that if PVP was making so much money, then it would have been prioritized. The fact that is hasn't been prioritized argues against your assertion. Your anecdotal evidence doesn't weigh up against the evidence that it wasn't a money-maker.

Personally, I have no idea whether or not it was a money-maker. All I am sure of is that it wasn't enough of a money-maker to make fixing it a priority.

I believe the devs were just ignorant of how many people were playing the game for pvp only. they saw pve as the money maker since people would pay for DLCs.

I would wager it did for awhile, every single month we would have a new legends toon release on the marketplace that was OP and could only be earned through paying 1000MC. Then you had an entire episode in Last Laugh devoted to PvP only. I think we only had the original booster bundle that no one liked cause the plasmic was ugly and there were no time capsules and not everyone bought replays.

Then why, after they lost a ton of money, didn't they immediately turn around and make getting PVP back a priority? Seriously, if they were losing so much money, then their corporate masters at the time would be saying "FIX IT!" The fact that they didn't says a lot about your opinion. In short, they didn't fix PVP because it wasn't a priority. It wasn't a priority because they didn't lose that much money when it "broke".

Every piece of actual evidence we can see as consumers of the game makes it obvious that PVP wasn't a big money-maker. If it had been, it would have been fixed or a very serious effort to fix it would have been made. The only evidence we have that PVP made money is a handful of people who say "I spent a lot of money on PVP!" which is only evidence that a handful of people spent money on PVP. Nothing more.

That handful wasn't enough for the company to turn around and fix it - and the game has lasted a full ten years despite PVP being "broken", so evidence suggests that your assertation is incorrect.

I already answered this question. think about all the stabilizers that you spend money to open. all the little money making gimmicks they have added to stay a float ever since pvp died. if they were making good money they would not have to add all this gambling nonsense to get get cash from the players.

Exactly.

Developers track what people spend their time doing in-game, and cross reference that with how much an account spends. If people who played a ton of PvP were spending a lot of money, they'd be more focused on PvP and making money from those players. Since the devs have focused on PvE, the info suggests that PvE-centered accounts spend more money.


Of course, in an ongoing sense, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the game is PvE only, it only attracts PvE-type players, while PvP-centered players leave the game. Hopefully the upcoming changes will be successful enough, the hiring initiatives fruitful enough, that we will see some PvP expansion in the future.

Still, you can be absolutely certain that PvE has historically made them more money, simply by observing the direction of the devs' focus.

very good comment.
Thinking about how devs track players I have to say they would probably see the PvP players spending more time in pve. you had to spend more time in pve in order to grind for skill points for example. the majority of the time pvp players spend in open world pvp phase going to war with each other and fighting at fightclub or ctr. so if i was to guess how pvp players pent most of their time i would say most of it was spent in open world, next would be pve and the least amount of time would be spent in actual pvp matches believe it or not.

Can you back up these false claims with proof of numbers?

No, you did not. You asserted your opinion based on anecdotes, while I provided a reasoning based on evidence.

I have never spent a penny on stabilizers. By your reasoning, because of my experience, nobody spends money on stabilizers and it makes no money for them. Do you see how nonsensical the argument is?

If PVP had been making so much money, it would have been a huge priority for them to make it work. It wasn't a priority, therefore it wasn't making them more money than PVE. Further, you claim in your first post that it's been 10 years since PVP broke. The game has been around just more than 10 years - so the majority of the time the game has been around, successful enough to keep the servers running, PVP has been broken. If that doesn't tell you that PVP isn't the biggest money-maker, then there is no reasoning with you.

Could PVP be a big money-maker? Yes, I'm sure it could. I bet they could turn it into a massive cash cow. But there would have to be huge, unpopular changes to prevent it from destroying the PVE side - which is currently where they are making all the money.

Perhaps the best way to revamp PVP (warning: this is opinion based on what I've heard on people's streams and such) is to get rid of PVP gear entirely, basing all open-world PVP on your character's PVE stats and giving up trying to balance the PVP side of personal characters. Focus on balancing Legends for PVP and make THAT the big draw - all the classic characters up against each other in various arenas with various team-ups. But let player character PVP be the wild west - players will find a way to make it work, although people will always whine that their favorite power isn't strong enough when in reality they aren't end-game or just aren't skilled enough.

But balance Legends and make that PVP and people will come. Again, that's just opinion. It's a lot easier to balance a handful of characters that have set skill sets than trying to balance the incredibly diverse and constantly changing loadouts of player characters. Done right, it would rival the biggest MOBA's out there because of the popular IP. Who *doesn't* want to beat up Superman? Or be Superman beating up Lex?

Anyway, enough. I'm out. I believe your initial assertion is incorrect, but I wish all PVPers well and hope they get what they want from the game. Just as long as it doesn't result in the PVE side being screwed up to accommodate the PVP side.

no offense but getting rid of pvp gear all together is not a good idea. pve gear does not work the same as pvp.

You’re going to get rid of the only gear with defense against players? Okay…
I can tell you people on Xbox definitely buy stabilizers to open capsules day 1 lol
How many companies has this game been through since release? Out of curiosity
Legends is the only think that has a shred of old pvp in it, unless you get a group of all prec users then it would feel like old pvp maybe…

I'm not sure if the PVP players brought more profit to the company than the PVE players or vice versa.

But for sure it was a LARGE group of people who were PVP players that also played PVE.

Some people don't understand that PVP players were also PVE players in a way.

They bought legendary, tokens and all that shiny stuff from market place too.


In my opinion, the view of who brought more income to the company does not matter here,

I just think that both sides which is PVP and PVE, wasn't making good enough profits for them,

Daybreak clearly wanted more income, so why they created Time Capsules and Boosterbundles.

And since then, they are focused only on that.

Simply put, they are very money greedy company. Unfortunately this is how it looks.


However, this does not change the fact of how they treated PVP players.

This have put a very bad light and opinion on Daybreak Games around their ex customers/players.



Greetings.

I don't think it grossed more money than PVE did. PVE after all is still getting episodes and episodes added. Meanwhile, PVP has only ever had the Last Laugh DLC and hasn't had a follow up since.

I don't know if I agree with that 100% because if you remember, the developers went ahead and made Belle Reve into a PVP map when Time Capsules were first starting out with the Future Batman Gear. I just don't think they have a dedicated department or if they decided that the activity from Belle Reve wasn't warranting enough for them to update the PVP side of the game.

Time Capsules are still a priority for them, obviously; but I'd have to wonder if Belle Reve's release was someone trying to test out the waters so to speak.