Considering returning. Been a long time.

[Tgo01]

The company has employees, even if it is few. you still have to consider overhead, billing, support, and other paid positions. Even if they manage to get alot of volunteer work, that does not mean the company has no costs. I also cant imagine there are 0 paid employees working on GS4, if that is what you are implying.

The last time Solomon discussed this the only paid employees he could mention (besides himself of course) was Chris in billing and the "IT guy." Of course their "IT guy" does a lot more than just work on GS.

Solomon then went on to say they employed something like 20 graphic artists, a team of music people, and other assorted employees all of who definitely do not work on GS.

Anyways, case in point OP. People like to complain ALOT about GS4 making money.

I have no problem with GS/Simu making money. What I have a problem with is Simu using GS as their personal ATM to fund their other games in the hopes of making the next Candy Crush game. No seriously, that's what Solomon said last time too, they are hoping to make the next Candy Crush and become billionaires overnight.

I wouldn't mind at all if the money was going back into GS and we saw some actual awesome game development instead of more and more microtransactions inspired "development."

[Stumplicker]

The last time Solomon discussed this the only paid employees he could mention (besides himself of course) was Chris in billing and the "IT guy." Of course their "IT guy" does a lot more than just work on GS.

Solomon then went on to say they employed something like 20 graphic artists, a team of music people, and other assorted employees all of who definitely do not work on GS.

Unless they're working on some sort of AAA game that nobody knows about, there's zero need for them to have 20 graphic artists. I'm pretty sure it's closer to the 2 total employees found in their business profile, plus one or two offsite, like Wyrom.

[Wrathbringer]

I made my own forum to get away from you guys but I can't stand it and have to come over all the time to spew nonsense.

Just...stop posting here.

[nocturnix]

The last time Solomon discussed this the only paid employees he could mention (besides himself of course) was Chris in billing and the "IT guy." Of course their "IT guy" does a lot more than just work on GS.

Solomon then went on to say they employed something like 20 graphic artists, a team of music people, and other assorted employees all of who definitely do not work on GS.


I have no problem with GS/Simu making money. What I have a problem with is Simu using GS as their personal ATM to fund their other games in the hopes of making the next Candy Crush game. No seriously, that's what Solomon said last time too, they are hoping to make the next Candy Crush and become billionaires overnight.

I wouldn't mind at all if the money was going back into GS and we saw some actual awesome game development instead of more and more microtransactions inspired "development."

Sounds to me like you dont know how many paid employees they have.

And as for reinvesting in other games, welcome to game studios. You use some of the revenue generated to keep your current titles running and earning money, with some improvements here and there and the rest goes into new projects. On a related note - I worked at two different "candy crush"-style mobile game studios. Trying to create a mobile game mega-hit like that is pretty naive and the odds are ridiculously stacked against you. Any company I see entering the mobile game market expecting that kind of success, I automatically consider them naive and out of their league. King had been making similar highly addictive browser-based puzzle games before mobile games even existed so the transition to mobile + their existing experience in the genre was perfect. Supercell (clash of clans) were making mobile games and failing since the Nokia "worm" days via Digital Chocolate so had already seen alot of failures and finally got it right with hayday/clash. Not to mention both companies got in VERY early. If you want to walz into the mobile game sphere now, be prepared to spend 5-10m on marketing alone, also considering a good mobile game takes 1-2 years dev time minimum. But yah, I dont think it is wise for them to re-invest in mobile games, unless it is what they know. But I am not familiar with their team and where their experience lies. I would consider a GS4 type mobile game interesting however.

[Tgo01]

Unless they're working on some sort of AAA game that nobody knows about, there's zero need for them to have 20 graphic artists. I'm pretty sure it's closer to the 2 total employees found in their business profile, plus one or two offsite, like Wyrom.

My bad. I went ahead and found the post and he doesn't list a number, he just says they have "large (and very exceptional) art department."

If it was me and "the billing dude" (who happens to be a billing chick, thank you), then yes, GS would be considered profitable, maybe even approaching "wildly" so (although if it was just me and the billing chick, I'd give her a raise and increase what we pay out to the GMs a great deal and then if there was anything left over, I'd give myself a raise, too).

But, we have an IT dude. We have a dude that deals with databases (billing, character, etc.). We have a dude that handles the game guts (engine, compiler, etc.).

Yes, those people also contribute to DR, MO, and AOH, so we're still doing pretty good. But, you're assuming that's all we do and it's not. Like most businesses, we don't choose to just sit back and be content, so we are constantly working to develop other products and therefore that means we have to work on other projects. So that means we have an office, complete with all the costs Sleken mentioned (and plenty more he didn't). We have an office manager. We have a business manager. We have a full development team. We have an audio team. We have a large (and very exceptional) art department (whom we also get to use for the IFE games, too). We have a QA team.

All of those things cost money and as other people have also pointed out, despite the fact that the player-base has diminished, those other costs have either stayed the same or increased. So, we run quests and pay events that give some players many things that they feel might make their playing time more enjoyable, but are purely optional. These are things that a lot of people want, but no one needs. We do everything we can, however, to make sure that everything you need in order to play and have fun is available for your basic subscription costs.

Would things be different if Tiny Heroes or Fantasy University or One Epic Knight were pulling in hundreds of thousands of dollars of money a year (or a month)? Pretty much definitely. Ditto if Dragons of Elanthia had taken off (::rimshot:. Until we develop and release a Puzzles and Dragons or a Clash of Clans, however, we put what we can back into the IFEs and continue to put the bulk toward new development, because if we didn't do that, we'd never manage to develop our Puzzle and Dragons of Clash of Clans.

For fuck's sake. SOLOMON himself admitted they put the "bulk" of the money from GS towards making the next Candy Crush game on fucking mobile games. Then you have to factor in the few paid employees who do work on GS (but is all really just maintenance and not development), how much is left over for actual GS development?

[Tgo01]

Sounds to me like you dont know how many paid employees they have.

From Solomon's own mouth they have like 5 paid employees that work on GS, over half of which also do other shit for the company.

[Stumplicker]

My bad. I went ahead and found the post and he doesn't list a number, he just says they have "large (and very exceptional) art department."

Oh I wasn't disagreeing with you. I was sort of just agreeing that whatever Solomon said about their "huge team" was probably a flaming pile of crap on the doorstep.

[Tgo01]

Oh yeah, I also found the laughable list of expenses Simu has to justify their ever increasing number of paid events and microtransactions:

In my real life job, people often exclaim, "You sure do charge a lot per hour!"

I often reply, "You should see how little of that I get to keep!"

So...just off the top of my head.


Possible expenses for Simutronics.

Salaries
Benefits
General Liability Insurance
Workers Compensation Insurance
Office Rent/Payments (I'd include any costs for space build out)
Office furniture
Utilities (Electric, Natural Gas/Propane, water and/or sewer, Trash service, TV)
Internet Connectivity
Servers and maybe hosting service
Accounting services
Credit Card processing service
Unemployment Security Taxes
Income taxes (Federal and state possible)
Travel Expenses
Software Licenses
Vehicle Expenses (Fuel, maintenance, tags, inspection fees)
Alarm Service (Security and Fire monitoring)
Sprinkler system inspection (annual)
Fire extinguisher inspection (annual)

I'm probably forgetting something, but the list is long enough.

Josh
SGM Sleken

[nocturnix]

Oh yeah, I also found the laughable list of expenses Simu has to justify their ever increasing number of paid events and microtransactions:

LOL, only Simutronics crazy-ass weird playerbase would make them post a list of expenses to justify charging money for their product. Craziness, kind of surprised they even wrote that response at all.

[Tgo01]

LOL, only Simutronics crazy-ass weird playerbase would make them post a list of expenses to justify charing money for their product.

That's what you took away from that comment? Not that they make enough money from GS + DR to literally fund an entire team of art developers and music composers and coders to work on other games but can't spare enough money to hire one full time coder to work on GS to bring us long awaited projects?

No one was "making" them do anything. People were upset, again, at the ever increasing number of microtransactions and were upset, again, that the money was not going back into GS. Solomon took it upon himself to justify the prices by saying they needed the money to strike it rich in the mobile gaming world and that oh yeah, they have to worry about things like office space, office furniture, and fire extinguisher inspections.