Where Did/Does Our Money Go?

Ch4mpTW

After doing some thinking for a bit while playing another game created by a somewhat similar size group of developers, I couldn't help but wonder where our money goes on ESO.

Where does our cash go...?

No seriously. Where does it go? The customer service has gone downhill incredibly fast. There's no more in-game GM's (Game Masters). The testing of ESO seems to have gone downhill, as every single patch there's a load of things that are either still not fixed or are newly broken. The overall online performance is pretty bad with lag having invaded PvE after at 1 point having been only a Cyrodiil thing (but even at 1 point there was no Cyrodiil lag). The combat team doesn't seem to have 'balance' too much of a concern, as patch after patch things seem to have been in favor of stamina-based builds. Not to mention constantly pushing out things that make stamina more and more appealing than magicka. And so on.

So where did it all go? I mean... ZOS apparently was rich enough to give away a boat load of cash to someone who supposedly doesn't even play the game regularly, as well as is doing another giveaway type of thing now. Meanwhile there are more and more complaints about the base of the game, and the game's overall performance. As I mentioned earlier, the game doesn't even have an adequate support team. So where is all of the cash going then? Anyone know? Where's my money?

Armitas

It goes into more proc sets, pretty sure.

wayfarerx

Skooma

Nerouyn

Armitas wrote: »

Where does our cash go...?

This game cost a buttload of money to make. It's probably one of it not the biggest budget MMOs ever.

They could do that because they've made a fortune from single player games like the TES ones and Fallout and were banking on the Elder Scrolls IP being a hit. But like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars before it, fizzled instead.

Having those successful single player games means I'm confident ESO won't ever be sold off or shut down. But they'll be expected to try to recoup the original costs of development and pay for ongoing development.

That's where the cash is going.

Ch4mpTW

Nerouyn wrote: »

Armitas wrote: »

Where does our cash go...?

This game cost a buttload of money to make. It's probably one of it not the biggest budget MMOs ever.

They could do that because they've made a fortune from single player games like the TES ones and Fallout and were banking on the Elder Scrolls IP being a hit. But like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars before it, fizzled instead.

Having those successful single player games means I'm confident ESO won't ever be sold off or shut down. But they'll be expected to try to recoup the original costs of development and pay for ongoing development.

That's where the cash is going.

Damn, that's messed up if that's true. Them basically milking utters until dry, and not really fronting cash for true quality testing and performance enhancement.

Why would you do that to a player base of a franchise as popular as Elder Scrolls though? Driving the game completely away from lore is 1 thing. But not even giving a damn to invest money into making the game better performance-wise to help out those who invested their dollars to lace the developer's pockets? That's grimey. Lol.

ESO is the only game I've seen where the player base has to literally snap out on the game's devs constantly to see major changes. Or rather get really upset to see change. A lot of devs want to try and make the overall population happy. When the majority of people are complaining day in and day out about the same thing damn near, and the stuff lasts for months...? That's a problem.

Egonieser

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Nerouyn wrote: »

Armitas wrote: »

Where does our cash go...?

This game cost a buttload of money to make. It's probably one of it not the biggest budget MMOs ever.

They could do that because they've made a fortune from single player games like the TES ones and Fallout and were banking on the Elder Scrolls IP being a hit. But like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars before it, fizzled instead.

Having those successful single player games means I'm confident ESO won't ever be sold off or shut down. But they'll be expected to try to recoup the original costs of development and pay for ongoing development.

That's where the cash is going.

Damn, that's messed up if that's true. Them basically milking utters until dry, and not really fronting cash for true quality testing and performance enhancement.

Why would you do that to a player base of a franchise as popular as Elder Scrolls though? Driving the game completely away from lore is 1 thing. But not even giving a damn to invest money into making the game better performance-wise to help out those who invested their dollars to lace the developer's pockets? That's grimey. Lol.

ESO is the only game I've seen where the player base has to literally snap out on the game's devs constantly to see major changes. Or rather get really upset to see change. A lot of devs want to try and make the overall population happy. When the majority of people are complaining day in and day out about the same thing damn near, and the stuff lasts for months...? That's a problem.

Investors and suits are not interested about how and why and what goes on in the game. They have a deadline by which time the quota has to be met or devs/publishers are in deep trouble. So there probably isn't enough money to invest into the product itself, but more to pay off the investors their share and somewhat keep the maintenance costs going.
They probably don't make much of a profit, instead they make (just a guess) enough to keep the game running and have a skeleton crew to slowly make little incremental updates (like we see since Orsinium). After the initial costs have been paid off and no more investors are at their throats demanding their millions+interest back, maybe then we can expect some kind of quality.
At least that's how it usually works, but Zenimax Inc is a rich and big corporation so it's probably not as bad as I think it is, but noone knows for sure except ZoS themselves and that sort of info is mostly confidential.

Nerouyn

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Damn, that's messed up if that's true. Them basically milking utters until dry, and not really fronting cash for true quality testing and performance enhancement.

They're a business. They're supposed to make a profit. They definitely spent a lot on development.

Just look at the quality and size of the game. It dwarfs most other MMOs.

We know that $300 million was pumped in specifically for MMO development. The same firm dropped another $150 on them a few years later - though that wasn't attached specifically to ESO.

https://web.archive.org/web/20080905143333/http://zenimax.com/news_pressrelease10.25.07.htm

Most other triple A MMOs cost (we know from publicly reported financials) under $100 million US to make. Many under 50.

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Why would you do that to a player base of a franchise as popular as Elder Scrolls though? Driving the game completely away from lore is 1 thing. But not even giving a damn to invest money into making the game better performance-wise to help out those who invested their dollars to lace the developer's pockets? That's grimey. Lol.

I think it's unfortunate that the game isn't more popular but unfortunately they made some mistakes and that's just how it is.

But ESO is a lot better off than a lot of other MMOs who aren't owned by massively successful game developers who are safely utterly filthy rich. Those MMOs often get sold off cheap to even worse owners who do unspeakable things to squeeze money out of players.

Not saying there's nothing to complain about. But ESO is very good compared to many other MMOs in this respect.

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

ESO is the only game I've seen where the player base has to literally snap out on the game's devs constantly to see major changes. Or rather get really upset to see change. A lot of devs want to try and make the overall population happy. When the majority of people are complaining day in and day out about the same thing damn near, and the stuff lasts for months...? That's a problem.

Not being completely happy is hardly unique to ESO's playerbase.

GW2's Heart of Thorns expansion was a flop (for various reasons). They'd promised a lot of things post the expansion's launch but because it flopped they couldn't afford to do most of them. So then they had to backflip, i.e. break a whole bunch of promises. Many players were understandably upset.

etc. etc. etc.

Ch4mpTW

Egonieser wrote: »

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Nerouyn wrote: »

Armitas wrote: »

Where does our cash go...?

This game cost a buttload of money to make. It's probably one of it not the biggest budget MMOs ever.

They could do that because they've made a fortune from single player games like the TES ones and Fallout and were banking on the Elder Scrolls IP being a hit. But like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars before it, fizzled instead.

Having those successful single player games means I'm confident ESO won't ever be sold off or shut down. But they'll be expected to try to recoup the original costs of development and pay for ongoing development.

That's where the cash is going.

Damn, that's messed up if that's true. Them basically milking utters until dry, and not really fronting cash for true quality testing and performance enhancement.

Why would you do that to a player base of a franchise as popular as Elder Scrolls though? Driving the game completely away from lore is 1 thing. But not even giving a damn to invest money into making the game better performance-wise to help out those who invested their dollars to lace the developer's pockets? That's grimey. Lol.

ESO is the only game I've seen where the player base has to literally snap out on the game's devs constantly to see major changes. Or rather get really upset to see change. A lot of devs want to try and make the overall population happy. When the majority of people are complaining day in and day out about the same thing damn near, and the stuff lasts for months...? That's a problem.

Investors and suits are not interested about how and why and what goes on in the game. They have a deadline by which time the quota has to be met or devs/publishers are in deep trouble. So there probably isn't enough money to invest into the product itself, but more to pay off the investors their share and somewhat keep the maintenance costs going.
They probably don't make much of a profit, instead they make (just a guess) enough to keep the game running and have a skeleton crew to slowly make little incremental updates (like we see since Orsinium). After the initial costs have been paid off and no more investors are at their throats demanding their millions+interest back, maybe then we can expect some kind of quality.
At least that's how it usually works, but Zenimax Inc is a rich and big corporation so it's probably not as bad as I think it is, but noone knows for sure except ZoS themselves and that sort of info is mostly confidential.

@Egonieser Bruh you stay with the insightful and logical posts. I love your comments and responses for that exact reason. I can always count on you to make sense of things. Appreciate you making things a bit more clear, bruh-bruh. ^_^

Mojmir

it goes up

Abeille

Well... Did you see how polished the animations are for the Crown Crates mini-game? Like, literally more polished than any other UI in the entire game?

I think I have an idea regarding where did our money go.

NewBlacksmurf

When ppl realize this game has made more than what Destiny or COD sales, you begin to ask who is handling their finances. They should be in the black but with less than 30 key staff and a *** poor support, you begin to think it's just a money grab.

As I always say to ppl who argue they need our subs, they're making half of WoW money but their product won't last 10+ years.

WalksonGraves

Take a trip anywhere in the world, we got 20 vacations for the 10% of the player base that is eligible!

andreasranasen

Nerouyn wrote: »

Armitas wrote: »

Where does our cash go...?

This game cost a buttload of money to make. It's probably one of it not the biggest budget MMOs ever.

They could do that because they've made a fortune from single player games like the TES ones and Fallout and were banking on the Elder Scrolls IP being a hit. But like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars before it, fizzled instead.

Having those successful single player games means I'm confident ESO won't ever be sold off or shut down. But they'll be expected to try to recoup the original costs of development and pay for ongoing development.

That's where the cash is going.

"Biggest budget MMO's"... source on that? Ever heard of Guild Wars? Now that is a successful and a big budget MMO!

Ch4mpTW

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

When ppl realize this game has made more than what Destiny or COD sales, you begin to ask who is handling their finances. They should be in the black but with less than 30 key staff and a *** poor support, you begin to think it's just a money grab.

As I always say to ppl who argue they need our subs, they're making half of WoW money but their product won't last 10+ years.

@NewBlacksmurf Agreed. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if my money (whether it be from buying crowns when they were on sale or sub fees) went toward some ZOS staff Ferraris or Lamborghinis. I'm just saying. Because things really aren't adding up. How are you scraping in so much bank, but yet and still have poor quality control and little to no support team? How is that possible? It has to be a cash grab. It has to.

In fact, I read somewhere that there was a game developer team who wasted a bunch of people's money investing in the game and it made hit news all over the web. Here's the URL: http://kotaku.com/5902280/what-the-hell-these-game-developers-did-with-your-kickstarter-money

So like, what if in fact all our cash is going to some wild parties and exotic cars? Lol. Crazy. Yes. But possible? Entirely.

Valethar

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

So where is all of the cash going then? Anyone know?

Fairly sure it's going here.

Rohamad_Ali

I think I gave them about a $100 over two years . I don't care what they did with it . I know they gave away a million dollars to someone and there is a prize to travel still up . No doubt they make plenty of money as no one else does that .

Sigtric

obviously it keeps the forum online so folks have a place to complain about everything.

Ch4mpTW

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

I think I gave them about a $100 over two years . I don't care what they did with it . I know they gave away a million dollars to someone and there is a prize to travel still up . No doubt they make plenty of money as no one else does that .

Lol, so where is all of the cash going? And why is it I feel strongly that somewhere Wrobel is whipping around in a Lamborghini convertible with custom Forgiatos, all the while we complain and rant about what's occurring in the game? I'm telling you, bruh. This has to be a cash grab. It just has to.

DRXHarbinger

Hiring a data centre. Those things ain't cheap, but certainly not on lag fixes. *** horrible tonight atm. Can't even weave swallow soul.

Egonieser

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

I think I gave them about a $100 over two years . I don't care what they did with it . I know they gave away a million dollars to someone and there is a prize to travel still up . No doubt they make plenty of money as no one else does that .

Actually, if you read the fine print of that 1m giveaway, it didn't come out of ZoS or even Zenimax's pocket. It was in fact some kind of oil company that sponsored that event. (Most likely one of their investors/business partners). Weird, but not unheard of, they always have their fingers in numerous pies.
Either way, it would have no actual impact on ZoS and ESO as they wouldn't have seen that money anyway.

Mojmir

Trumps campaign, his brothers an Investor isn't he?

sirston

a new car! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU1w4cgAYCA

jk it goes to the bills to keep the internet on and the pockets of the investors

acw37162

The OP of this post has a short memory span.

Ch4mpTW

sirston wrote: »

a new car! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU1w4cgAYCA

jk it goes to the bills to keep the internet on and the pockets of the investors

So wait, does that mean that regardless of how much cash we've previously invested into this game as a consumer — we'll never actually see that cash be invested into bettering the game performance-wise from ZOS? Because that's the vibe I'm getting with these replies saying how the cash is mainly heading toward investors for the most part. Because if that's the case, would subscribing to ESO+ be a complete waste (outside of crafting bag uses)?

DaveMoeDee

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

When ppl realize this game has made more than what Destiny or COD sales, you begin to ask who is handling their finances. They should be in the black but with less than 30 key staff and a *** poor support, you begin to think it's just a money grab.

As I always say to ppl who argue they need our subs, they're making half of WoW money but their product won't last 10+ years.

You need more than $1 now to be in the black for $1 spent 5 years ago. You assume too much.

You are speaking way beyond what you have knowledge of. Kinda pointless. Go ahead and complain about poor support. But to pretend you have any clue about their finances is disingenuous.

Ch4mpTW

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

When ppl realize this game has made more than what Destiny or COD sales, you begin to ask who is handling their finances. They should be in the black but with less than 30 key staff and a *** poor support, you begin to think it's just a money grab.

As I always say to ppl who argue they need our subs, they're making half of WoW money but their product won't last 10+ years.

You need more than $1 now to be in the black for $1 spent 5 years ago. You assume too much.

You are speaking way beyond what you have knowledge of. Kinda pointless. Go ahead and complain about poor support. But to pretend you have any clue about their finances is disingenuous.

So is there actually no way for us to possibly trace the backing of where the money is going instead of generally speaking investors? Like is there no paper trail, or any links we could follow/trace? Because I really do want to know where my money went, if not to bettering the product I purchased and spent so many hours of my life playing.

WalksonGraves

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

When ppl realize this game has made more than what Destiny or COD sales, you begin to ask who is handling their finances. They should be in the black but with less than 30 key staff and a *** poor support, you begin to think it's just a money grab.

As I always say to ppl who argue they need our subs, they're making half of WoW money but their product won't last 10+ years.

You need more than $1 now to be in the black for $1 spent 5 years ago. You assume too much.

You are speaking way beyond what you have knowledge of. Kinda pointless. Go ahead and complain about poor support. But to pretend you have any clue about their finances is disingenuous.

So is there actually no way for us to possibly trace the backing of where the money is going instead of generally speaking investors? Like is there no paper trail, or any links we could follow/trace? Because I really do want to know where my money went, if not to bettering the product I purchased and spent so many hours of my life playing.

You bought a game, that doesn't make you an investor.

Wollust

Well.. I can tell you for sure that the money has not been spent on Cyrodiil. Performance has only known the way down for the past 2 years.

Ch4mpTW

WalksonGraves wrote: »

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

When ppl realize this game has made more than what Destiny or COD sales, you begin to ask who is handling their finances. They should be in the black but with less than 30 key staff and a *** poor support, you begin to think it's just a money grab.

As I always say to ppl who argue they need our subs, they're making half of WoW money but their product won't last 10+ years.

You need more than $1 now to be in the black for $1 spent 5 years ago. You assume too much.

You are speaking way beyond what you have knowledge of. Kinda pointless. Go ahead and complain about poor support. But to pretend you have any clue about their finances is disingenuous.

So is there actually no way for us to possibly trace the backing of where the money is going instead of generally speaking investors? Like is there no paper trail, or any links we could follow/trace? Because I really do want to know where my money went, if not to bettering the product I purchased and spent so many hours of my life playing.

You bought a game, that doesn't make you an investor.

... What? What are you talking about? The sheer fact you placed money into something means you are an investor, because you invested in the said product. The only difference is the scale of money being invested and handled, as well as how. Actually to be even more simple about it, you can invest more than cash into something and still be an investor. For example. You play a game. You're doing what? Investing time into it. Investing energy into it. And so on. And that's by definition by the way.

Invest - verb (used with object)
1.
to put (money) to use, by purchase or expenditure, in something offering potential profitable returns, as interest, income, or appreciation in value.
2.
to use (money), as in accumulating something:

SaibotLiu

It's not your money anymore, it's their money. None of your business what they do with their money.

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Invest - verb (used with object)
1.
to put (money) to use, by purchase or expenditure, in something offering potential profitable returns, as interest, income, or appreciation in value.
2.
to use (money), as in accumulating something:

You forgot to read the definition you posted. You're not an investor. It's against the TOS to profit by playing the game, making it against ZOS's own rules to even consider your purchase an "investment".

[SNIP]

[Edited for bait]

Ch4mpTW

SaibotLiu wrote: »

It's not your money anymore, it's their money. None of your business what they do with their money.

I could agree that it's no longer my money. True indeed. It's just that I'm curious where it went. I mean, would you not be curious where your dollars are going if you constantly have put cash into this game only to see that performance is slacking severely and the game doesn't even have adequate customer service? It's only logical to wonder about such things if given that type of scenario, is it not?