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Thread: Official: Stillfront Q2, Record Gemstone Profits

  1. #21
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    Breaking News:

    For profit company turns a profit.


    >forage for snapdragon stalk
    d100(Open): -251
    You stumble about in a fruitless attempt at foraging.

    1/6/2014: Setheve completes the promotion ritual and says, "Congratulations, Whirlin, for achieving Guild Master status! We trust you'll serve your guild well."
    1/11/2014: Grandmaster Alchemist
    1/14/2014: Capped, and got Loralaii killed by a GM.
    7/11/2016: Founded the Hand of the Arkati
    9/20/2016: T5 on my bow (Thanks to Isola)... Managed as far as T4 myself.

  2. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by Whirlin View Post
    Breaking News:

    For profit company turns a profit.
    I have no problem with Simu making a profit, I have a problem with them treating their employees and customers like idiots.

  3. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by Whirlin View Post
    Breaking News:

    For profit company turns a profit.
    Everyone would be throwing a party on these forums if Simu even pretended to be reinvesting a portion of said profits back into their game.

    This is one of the few areas where most people on these forums actually agree on
    The only rude person I met was a taxi driver in kagoshima. I was going from the train station to the ferry to take it over to an island and was showing him my papers and he was like "oh, climb mountain?" and I'm like "hai, yep!" and he made a muscle pose(bent arm, whatever you call it) laughed, and rubbed my belly.. like "oh, no, you fat american fuck, you no get up there", but whatever - Japhrimel

  4. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by Alashir View Post
    This is one of the few areas where most people on these forums actually agree on
    It's true, I even remember Allereli giving Wyrom shit over this one time.

  5. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alashir View Post
    Everyone would be throwing a party on these forums if Simu even pretended to be reinvesting a portion of said profits back into their game.

    This is one of the few areas where most people on these forums actually agree on
    You're misinterpreting profit... Reinvestment comes as an expense, which is calculated BEFORE profit. So by turning a profit, that's the leftover cash AFTER any investments.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tgo01 View Post
    I have no problem with Simu making a profit, I have a problem with them treating their employees and customers like idiots.
    This is a problem with capitalism in general. This is absolutely no different than the relationship between employees/employers in other for-profit companies. As far as customers are concerned, as long as they keep paying, they're customers, regardless of investment. If you can keep selling shit, and if people keep paying for shit, you'll keep making shit, why invest in shit +1 if they're happy buying shit? If the market continues to bear any changes that you've implemented, you're fine.


    >forage for snapdragon stalk
    d100(Open): -251
    You stumble about in a fruitless attempt at foraging.

    1/6/2014: Setheve completes the promotion ritual and says, "Congratulations, Whirlin, for achieving Guild Master status! We trust you'll serve your guild well."
    1/11/2014: Grandmaster Alchemist
    1/14/2014: Capped, and got Loralaii killed by a GM.
    7/11/2016: Founded the Hand of the Arkati
    9/20/2016: T5 on my bow (Thanks to Isola)... Managed as far as T4 myself.

  6. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by Whirlin View Post
    This is a problem with capitalism in general. This is absolutely no different than the relationship between employees/employers in other for-profit companies. As far as customers are concerned, as long as they keep paying, they're customers, regardless of investment. If you can keep selling shit, and if people keep paying for shit, you'll keep making shit, why invest in shit +1 if they're happy buying shit? If the market continues to bear any changes that you've implemented, you're fine.
    So your defense of Simu is sure they are acting shitty and treating their employees and customers like shit, but a lot of companies do that too so who cares?

    And people say Simu needed to get away from the PC because we set a bad example for the company.

    Not to mention the obvious; their current business model for GS is NOT working, otherwise they would not be resorting to more and more microtransactions and pay events. Once upon a time this game had NO fees at all, it was "free" to customers on AOL/Prodigy/whatever. Then it moved to the web for a flat fee of 9.99. Then they added on a premium feature. Then they started having pay events. All the while the population of the game is shrinking and shrinking, presumably so is their profit margins. To increase those profit margins do they reinvest in the game to maybe try and attract more customers or get old customers to come back? No. They just keep adding more and more EXTRAS in an attempt to make that lost revenue back.

    The idea that a company like Comcast isn't constantly upgrading their infrastructure and offering more and more base services to their base monthly fee and is instead using all of that money in an attempt to create an entirely new business all the while effectively ignoring their paying customers is bogus. Yes, I just used Comcast as an analogy where Comcast is the good guy and Simu is the bad guy. Let that sink on for a minute.
    Last edited by Tgo01; 09-07-2017 at 05:54 PM.

  7. #27

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tgo01 View Post
    So your defense of Simu is sure they are acting shitty and treating their employees and customers like shit, but a lot of companies do that too so who cares?

    And people say Simu needed to get away from the PC because we set a bad example for the company.

    Not to mention the obvious; their current business model for GS is NOT working, otherwise they would not be resorting to more and more microtransactions and pay events. Once upon a time this game had NO fees at all, it was "free" to customers on AOL/Prodigy/whatever. Then it moved to the web for a flat fee of 9.99. Then they added on a premium feature. Then they started having pay events. All the while the population of the game is shrinking and shrinking, presumably so is their profit margins. To increase those profit margins do they reinvest in the game to maybe try and attract more customers or get old customers to come back? No. They just keep adding more and more EXTRAS in an attempt to make that lost revenue back.

    The idea that a company like Comcast isn't constantly upgrading their infrastructure and offering more and more base services to their base monthly fee and is instead using all of that money in an attempt to create an entirely new business all the while effectively ignoring their paying customers is bogus. Yes, I just used Comcast as an analogy where Comcast is the good guy and Simu is the bad guy. Let that sink on for a minute.
    Comcast has compeititors like Verizon who try to outdo each other, hence the constant upgrades and improvements. What people are forgetting is Gemstone is a quasi-monopoly when it comes to this particular type of gaming. They have no other real compeititor that is not outright P2W (and no other MUD out there is monthly).

    Effectively, what Simu is doing now is introducing P2W. But, it's sorta a different P2W because you could already P2W by buying off of other players. It's such a fine line it's hard to even distinguish if it's even there or not.
    Last edited by Duskruin; 09-07-2017 at 06:21 PM.

  8. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by Whirlin View Post
    You're misinterpreting profit... Reinvestment comes as an expense, which is calculated BEFORE profit. So by turning a profit, that's the leftover cash AFTER any investments.


    This is a problem with capitalism in general. This is absolutely no different than the relationship between employees/employers in other for-profit companies. As far as customers are concerned, as long as they keep paying, they're customers, regardless of investment. If you can keep selling shit, and if people keep paying for shit, you'll keep making shit, why invest in shit +1 if they're happy buying shit? If the market continues to bear any changes that you've implemented, you're fine.
    What sounds better for a game...a lot of people paying a little, or a handful of people paying a lot?

    Simu has made no secret that they don't do any real advertising (we even paid for that too on here a few years ago because Simu won't). They've done some things recently to try and bring old players back, but the whole time they should have been looking to make the population explode to where even if everyone was just a basic sub with no microtransactions they'd still turn a hefty profit.

    People have been suggesting integrating the game into Facebook for years now, which would almost definitely pay off considering there are like a billion people on it, but Dave is just too cheap and short sighted to do anything unless he can get it done either for free or for less than illegal alien wages. I was hoping he'd eventually sell GS to someone who gives a fuck but he managed to find someone even worse than himself to hand it over to.
    Last edited by Methais; 09-07-2017 at 07:07 PM.
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  9. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kembal View Post
    Maybe the question we need to be asking is whether revenues from the mobile game will be funneled into GS development?
    Quote Originally Posted by Tenlaar View Post
    ^
    Question for the pro-transgender, gender fluid, anyone can be whatever they want to be, people out there: Should a male be granted a combat license to enter a MMA fight to pummel females because he 'identifies' as a woman?

  10. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Methais View Post
    Simu has made no secret that they don't do any real advertising (we even paid for that too on here a few years ago because Simu won't). They've done some things recently to try and bring old players back, but the whole time they should have been looking to make the population explode to where even if everyone was just a basic sub with no microtransactions they'd still turn a hefty profit.

    People have been suggesting integrating the game into Facebook for years now, which would almost definitely pay off considering there are like a billion people on it, but Dave is just too cheap and short sighted to do anything unless he can get it done either for free or for less than illegal alien wages. I was hoping he'd eventually sell GS to someone who gives a fuck but he managed to find someone even worse than himself to hand it over to.
    So, regarding advertising... that entire youtube campaign with the Taldorian Community college, or whatever that was... was absolutely a paid advertisement. The video included an unknown sorcerer using a bow, talking to another character that was also completely unknown, referencing fighting creatures that were massively overleveled for the character of the player, in what I believe was also the wrong geography, while outside the north gate, with nobody else passing through the area during the engagement. The taldoran community college youtuber also got flagged multiple times doing videos for profit. Many of us reached this conclusion relatively early on... but we all sat on it because we liked the influx of new blood that the video's success drew. But that being said, it was absolutely a paid advertisement. But yes, beyond that, there was basically none. So... Simu has marketed exactly once, ever!

    It's a good assertion, but it also makes two assumptions... first of which, it assumes that there's an elastic demand for text based games that would be satisfied through further investment into the game. Given the pricing changes, and other nonsense Simu has subjected to us, I would counter that the demand and economic return actually appear more inelastic due to history. So what's best for the game may not directly coincide with higher revenue numbers, higher subs under an inelastic market. Secondly, I think it places too heavy an emphasis on their web front end... Which, I'm not sure when you've last experienced it... is quite possibly putting your worst foot forward in terms of introduction to the game. That being said, I agree with you on the interconnection of something like lolFacebook as an option. However, I think even the hayday for facebook games has dwindled in the last two years or so.


    Quote Originally Posted by Tgo01 View Post
    Not to mention the obvious; their current business model for GS is NOT working, otherwise they would not be resorting to more and more microtransactions and pay events. Once upon a time this game had NO fees at all, it was "free" to customers on AOL/Prodigy/whatever. Then it moved to the web for a flat fee of 9.99. Then they added on a premium feature. Then they started having pay events. All the while the population of the game is shrinking and shrinking, presumably so is their profit margins. To increase those profit margins do they reinvest in the game to maybe try and attract more customers or get old customers to come back? No. They just keep adding more and more EXTRAS in an attempt to make that lost revenue back.
    What evidence do you have that it's NOT working? You're crying that it's failing, and yet the company is seeing record numbers in terms of profit. Revenues are greatly outpacing expenses for the games and its a great quarter for stillfront. We have more active accounts than ever. I'm really uncertain what the basis for your assumption is. If you'd like to preach that it may not be sustainable, and eventually lead to a downturn, I would agree with you, but the profits based on the historical data and the Stillfront release show record numbers. That's higher revenue and/or lower expenses. I'm uncertain how you can take a higher gap between revenue and expenses as being a failing strategy.


    >forage for snapdragon stalk
    d100(Open): -251
    You stumble about in a fruitless attempt at foraging.

    1/6/2014: Setheve completes the promotion ritual and says, "Congratulations, Whirlin, for achieving Guild Master status! We trust you'll serve your guild well."
    1/11/2014: Grandmaster Alchemist
    1/14/2014: Capped, and got Loralaii killed by a GM.
    7/11/2016: Founded the Hand of the Arkati
    9/20/2016: T5 on my bow (Thanks to Isola)... Managed as far as T4 myself.

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