Is the End Game nigh?

[Lucas]

I've been seeing a recent trend in GS now and even in DR with Simutronics. It seems that the pay events are becoming more common, trying to get people to commit to plat is more and more frequent, and general feeling of Simu trying to "cash out" is beginning to appear.

The basic theory is that I think Simu has committed tremendous resources (resources that they've garnered from all the revenue of GS and DR etc. from over the decades) and poured it into HJ. I think HJ is custard's last stand for Simu and if that tanks I think Simu is going to say the old "Well, it's been fun but all good things can't last forever..."

Whats everyone else's opinion?

P.S. I also think Simu's strategy is to depopulate all the GS/DR text games and get them into one game HJ? Is that reasonable?

[Asha]

You can probably find my opinion on one of the many other threads with this exact same topic as the subject matter.

[Ignot]

I think simu has no clue what they are doing with their business model.

[Gan]

As much as I think SIMU would love to convert or duplicate the paying customer base of Gemstone over to HJ, I do not think they would be unwise in sunsetting Gemstone due to the negligible amount of resources and maintenance required for it.

Another thing to consider is that even in today's gaming environment where graphical mmorpg's are the popular environment and hence where the money is, the people who still play a text based environment of Gemstone remain for a reason... in spite of the allure of a graphical alternatives. As long as the benefit of providing a service to these individuals outweigh the cost then, following a traditional business model approach, it would be doubtful that SIMU will drop Gemstone.

Now a neglect in gaming and development resources of Gemstone due to the focus being on HJ is a viable concern.

[Boris]

How was the population trend in the last 3 years, when you got on peak hours was it around the 700 mark or has it been falling ?

[drigore]

Now that Inferno is closed, a lot of the older players have been comming back. Also, with all of the 'farmers' that make GS pay for itself, Simu is still making money from it, so they'll never stop it. Add the pay event that again, pay for themselves from selling silvers in the game and the people that must go to everything, GS isn't going anywhere.

[Latrinsorm]

I think the point of the Plat free trials was to show people what Plat is like, as the barrier to entry was really high before. Ironically, an influx of people into Plat conceivably made it less Platlike, but that's neither here nor there.

Simu would be dumb if they didn't try to get higher prices for pay events. Supply and demand, and all that. Taking the increased incidence of pay events as a nefarious GS-closing plot doesn't strike me as terribly reasonable. If they didn't close Modus Operandi after years of 20 people on at a time, I doubt very much they'd ever close Gemstone.

[FinisWolf]

Plat was always easy to get into for a 30 day trail, saying of course that you maintained a premium subscription (as is required now to visit plat). All you had to do was write Khal (Paul) and you could see 30 days of plat. I did this awhile back ( a couple years ago), and it just was not for me. If I want that small of a subscription base I could go play AoH, MO, etc. :shrug:

Finis