Whats going on Daybreak?

Canibalization in my context is often used to describe a practice where businesses that invest in new business models that will compete with their existing ones. For example if Apple had built a streaming service while it was making a lot of money by selling music to customers via iTunes (which they did not, loosing them their unique position and making them followers), or Microsoft building O365...

EQ2 canibalized EQ1 income, but it is the same business model, so the above use of the word do not really apply...

Currently, DBG has an internal concept of “Shared Services”, as referred by devs, (or they used to, it has been some time since I saw the comment).

Depending on how extensive the speculated split would be, DPG could end up shouldering that responsability and some of those resources as well. My *speculative* guess is that EQ1 has a larger risk on the hosting side than the other games in DBG (huge old codebase), and would require a larger crew standing by...

They are splintering EQ from the rest and renaming it to charge you lifetime sub again. Get your wallets ready.

Then your context is bad. It doesn't need to be a different business model. The defining point is that it takes sales away from an existing product in favor of a newer product.

EQ2 is a *direct* example of this. Many of those players left EQ to play EQ2. EQ3/EQN, if it ever stops being a dream / vaporware, would be another direct example as (some) people would leave EQ for it.

SOE/DBG/whatever taking resources from EQ for other games is an *indirect* example of this.

It is indirect because few people are going to directly leave EQ to play H1Z1 or Planetside, but, by taking away EQ's resources it speeds up the player losses of that game while working on getting other players so the effect is the same: Loss of sales of the older product in favor of a new product.


In any case I'm not particularly interested in arguing about this so w/e. You'll never convince me that for all the money they pissed away on failed games that earned them nothing they couldn't have improved EQ by a large margin and earned for more in return.

EQ2 would certainly count as an example or of cannibalization to me in a planning phase, however it is possible that the degree in which it took (and continues to take) market share from EQ1 was so little that running both games was optimal. It’s a pretty interring case study, actually.

But taking profits from EQ to fund other endeavors is not problematic from a business standpoint. It simply can’t be proven, from our perspective, that they’d do better with more invested in EQ. That’s not to say it wouldn’t be nice, and perhaps even more ethical, but it simply wouldn’t be sustainable otherwise.

Well, all you need for a comparison is to look at Blizzard with WoW and their philosophy. EQ1 was at its peak and got knocked off because they decided to focus on EQ2. If, you ever read/listen to any original WoW developers they made it clear that they wouldn't follow the SoE philosophy of multiple games. They'd just focus on a single game.

So many arguments here come down to one person saying "we can't ever know" and leave it at that.

While we can't predict the future, we can use logic and likelihood to see the most obvious outcome that would be far more likely than anything else.

I predict the sun will rise tomorrow. See what I did there?

I can tell you with great confidence, if they hadn't given those profits to other games, and hadn't pulled devs off EQ work often and for long periods, they would be no worse off than they are. And it's VERY likely they would be better off.

Trying to wave away the thought that investing more money in EQ would improve it by saying "We can't know", is like saying you're not sure if the sun will rise tomorrow.

This isn't something that you can give blame/credit to the developers for as the decision to focus on other games was a management decision not something that the devs could control. The same could be said for Blizzards decisions on how it put money around WoW.

It should also be remembered that Blizzard had been making games for almost 14 years by the time WoW was released and it was based on an already existing franchise and was entering an already established MMO market which was able to help its numbers.

Agreed, but it speaks more to the management at Blizzard's philosophy at the time of focusing on making only a few very great games. There's not really an excuse for Everquest fading off, market leader, 5 years of experience, internal infrastructure, cultural phenomenon, etc.

If only Lords of Everquest had been as good as Champions of Norrath. Then EQNext would have succeeded.

They lost upwards of $50m on Titan, who knows how much on the first cancelled Starcraft game (safe to say with the size of their teams 4 years development time won't have been cheap) and just recently tossed aside yet another Starcraft spin-off after a mere 2 years of burning money.

Yes, they can probably "afford" it but their record in this department is hardly spotless.

They have lost money in development, in interviews Blizzard said half of new ideas get cancelled. You have to do something with that $$$, see Epic Games with Fortnite for the current example. The point I'm making is that Blizzard concentrated on a few products. They focus on WoW and continually re-develop and improve that game. Blizzard didn't run off and attempt to make WoW2, they took that $$$ and kept that game alive and grew their development team. EQ2 was one of the bigger SOE mistakes.

Can we all agree that Curt Schilling is the biggest loser when it comes to MMO managment. However in the long run Sony/VI/DBG might have lost more money just spending it on things that never worked.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/38_Studios

Don't need to. I was responding to something that seemed to, in my mind, be referring to financial/investory/possible buyer stakeholders rather then the broader term.

My apologies for exciting you so much I saw that exclamation mark at the end so I can tell you were quite perturbed about that.

Yea I enjoyed playing champions of norrath and return to arms on the ps2 just wished they would come out with a updated one.

Andarriel

EQ1 is a product that is matured and saw its height many years ago. There is a limit to EQ1’s RoI. While you make a valid point about cannibalizing products, you also don’t put every spare penny you have into it when your data is telling you there is a limit on your returns.

I’m not defending DBG nor am I advocating for fewer resources. I am simply saying that, from a business perspective, growth must be part of the equation.

I predict with great certainty that is an indisputable fact.

Sadly yes, this is how most businesses think. A completely unsustainable notion, 'there must be growth'.

Planned obsolescence at it's finest. Consumers you must consume, toss it aside, and say 'meh', what have you done for me lately?

I quess what I'm saying is.

EQ is in itself proof that a game business model can last 20+ years by providing more of the same. At least for a niche that appreciates fine things that improve with age.

And they have recently made a statement that finally seems to get that dynamic (paraphrase: we aren't seeking noobs, only returning players).

EQ isn't at it's pinnacle, and it won't last forever period. So instead of trying to cross-collateralize/cannibalize it, let it live out it's old age (for many years to come).

Most of us appreciate the gray hairs as distinguished. At least that's what we tell our kids.

But I get that 'big business' doesn't see it that way.

Which is why I said:

No one is saying that they need to reinvest 100% of the money into EQ. Only that they need to not give EQ a skeleton crew development team and nonexistent QA / CS departments.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about what I am saying about businesses and how they make decisions.

The reason “we can’t know” is that we don’t have access to the same reports the controllers and CFOs do. It’s not like predicting patterns of night and day.

And even if you are hypothetically correct that they would be no worse off than they are, you are drawing that conclusion from hindsight. I can argue that Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper would have been better off if they didn’t get in that airplane, but they had a show they needed to get to.

Lastly, I’m not going to disagree that it’s a bit of a bummer that businesses focus on growth in our society, but that’s how our economic system works. People want their assets to grow. I’d love to give all my money to important sustainable causes, but if I don’t put some of it into investments that grow, I’m going to be in trouble eventually.