Post by starscreamrobot on Apr 20, 2010 8:02:16 GMT -5
Warning: Long rant from a dude who already talks too much incoming.
There has been, obviously, a lot of talk about the servers shutting down and what we can do about it, however fruitless such efforts may be. What I haven't seen, though, is anyone really talking about WHY the servers went down.
The general consensus, and the official party line, has been that there simply weren't enough players. It wasn't worth it for EA to pay the money to keep the servers up because enough people weren't playing. In those last few days, a lot of people were making the grossly misinformed assumption that people should play more to make the game look more popular. Well, I'm going to have to call bullshit on all of that.
Maybe when some people think of what a server is, they imagine some huge box sitting in a sterile room that's constantly attended by people making sure everything is up and running. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In general, and certainly in the case of gaming, a server is a box no bigger than your average PC, and sometimes more like the size of a laptop. Because that's all a game server really is, a computer designated for the sole task of connecting players. Remember how you could set up private servers through your own PC? You were literally doing the exact same thing EA was doing with their own servers, just with the limitations of a machine and internet connection not designed specifically for that purpose.
Servers can be tricky to get set up. Obviously, you need the hardware, and you need the staff to get it all rolling. That said, EA, as a video game company, obviously already has access to tons of these machines. Likewise, for a game this size, it takes maybe a small handful of people at most to get things rolling. The first few weeks of launch can be tricky as they have to tweak settings and get things going to handle the exact amount of regular traffic ( I'm sure you've all played multiplayer games with early launch troubles ) but after that, practically no maintenance is required. If there's ever a problem with the servers, the overwhelming majority of them are fixed with a simple press of a reset button.
When I was sixteen years old, my buddy and I were running like half a dozen servers out of his basement. Okay, so maybe he was running the servers and I was just hanging around doing all the shit-talking, whatever. Either way, we were doing everything from unlimited file storage and web hosting to yes, actual PC game servers ( any Counterstrike vets ever play on 'Nutsen?' ). None of this is particularly complicated and most of all, not particularly expensive. It was all old reworked PC's that, after initial setup, didn't require us to pay anything but the electric bill.
So not too long ago, the same friend asked why "that annoying THE ONE RING HAS RETURNED guy isn't yelling from your bedroom any more?" I explained the situation, and he just couldn't believe it. Now, as backstory, said friend now works for one of the largest data storage companies in the world, who's clientele includes everyone from Coca-Cola to the Pentagon ( and I'm still just hanging around talking shit, too ). The moral of this isn't just "my buddy said it was dumb," but it did get me thinking, and researching.
The idea that it wasn't cost-effective or even more ludicrous, too expensive to keep the servers up is complete bullshit. That far after launch, it would cost practically nothing to run the servers on a daily basis. In fact, it would be remarkably easier and less expensive BECAUSE it was a smaller community. I'm talking extremely cheap here, for each platform, at MOST, it would cost EA between ten and twenty dollars a month to keep them up, and that's a high estimate. Think about that: ONE copy of the game sold could realistically pay to keep the private servers running for a HALF A YEAR.
I will add, for you XBOX users, that Microsoft requires publishers to host their games from their own servers. This may be more expensive than my estimates. That said, given all the information about what it costs to run a server, especially in comparison to the size of the game, Microsoft would have to be SERIOUSLY ripping them off to make it cost much more than I predicted.
I'd say that's a pretty considerable profit margin, even for a game that didn't sell very well. So we can pretty safely say that the idea that EA was losing too much money, or really, any money at all, keeping the servers up is a downright lie. However, we also know that EA, and most of the other major game publishers, are pretty much hemorrhaging money right now. Yes, the worldwide economy is pretty terrible, but other entertainment industries aren't taking a hit this big. There HAS to be some X factor there that's causing that. There is. EA knows what it is, too. And that's what you should all be looking at, not WHY were the servers shut down, but WHY was EA losing this money, and WHY did they chose to take such a drastic step.
Let's make one thing perfectly clear, game companies don't make money by running servers. It's not like they get a shiny new penny from the tooth fairy every time you headshot a guy. Okay, some PC servers, like Valve's Steam and Blizzard's Battle.Net, both make some extra income by selling ad space for their loading screens and stuff, but this isn't present on consoles. The reason they put multiplayer in games is because it's a popular feature that drives sales. So the real question is this: WHY are EA's sales down, and what correlation does it have to their servers?
The answer may surprise you, but it's pretty obvious when you think about it:
USED GAMES.
Period, end of story. That's the mysterious x-factor here. Over the past few years, there's been an absolute explosion in the used games market. GameStop was always there, but now there's Amazon, Best Buy, rental stores, even independent and local shops getting in on the act, and even Ebay on a more personal level. The used game industry absolutely exploded over the past few years, and there's a good reason for that. Good for the stores that are selling them, bad for the companies that make them.
The company that made a game makes NO MONEY whatsoever off the sale of a used game. I'll say that again: when you buy a used game, 100% of the profit goes to the store you're buying it from. Why do you think GameStop encourages it so much? Why do you think they offer such crazy deals and always push for trade-ins? Why do you think you get such a reasonable price for any relatively new title? I know a lot of people think it's a rip-off, but go to any pawn shop in the world and you won't get HALF THE VALUE for a used item, especially one as potentially fickle as electronics.
This, of course, puts publishers in a hard spot. When a new game comes out, even if it's a major title, but especially if it's something smaller ( like Conquest ), a significant portion of their consumer base is willing to wait until they can get it cheaper, even if it's just a little cheaper only weeks after release, as a used game.
Game companies now make all their money at launch and launch alone. This explains their big push towards things like pre-order bonuses, limited or collector's editions, even generating artificial hype about the potential rarity of a title. Think about how hard it is to even FIND new copies of a lot of games after launch. Some stores ( and I know GameStop does this ) even artificially generate that rarity by under-ordering specifically for the purpose of making you buy the game used. Either way, if you go to pick up a game even a week or two after launch, they're going to have at least a few used copies, and even though it will only be maybe five dollars cheaper at that point, as a consumer you're still going to gravitate toward that.
This affects all publishers, but nobody is hit harder by it than EA. Why? Yes, EA publishes a lot of titles, but they have one market in particular completely monopolized: sports games. I know a lot of you don't really care for them, but you have to admit they make a hell of a lot more money pumping out a new Madden clone every year than they do from action/adventure titles.
And that's exactly the problem. Consumers have wizened up. Many have started to realize the only real difference in these games every year are the rosters, which they can manually update themselves in the last version, and that with such a big title, there's bound to be tons of trade-ins and they can just get this year's installment much cheaper in a few months and keep playing their current version to tide them over.
And THAT'S where the servers come in. The main point of those types of games is to play them online, and as long as they can play them online, they can wait on buying this year's version. As long as they can play them online.
Conquest wasn't the only game shut down that day. In fact, the majority of it's fallen brethren were just that, older sports games.
EA has openly stated they have and will consider shutting down last year's title the day the new one launches, forcing people to buy the new game or not play at all. They're not the only ones, even Activision, who puts out the massive gaming juggernaut that is Call of Duty, has publicly stated they're considering a 'pay to play' monthly fee for future installments. That would hit XBOX owners particularly hard, who are already paying a monthly fee just for multiplayer access alone.
Personally, there's only one conclusion I can draw there: THAT'S the reason the game was shut down. Not because they were losing money ( at the very least that can't be the reason, because they weren't ) but simply to see if they could get away with it.
They KNOW that this is a controversial move. They KNOW it could potentially hurt them. They took a baby step in that direction to see what would happen. They aren't the only ones. Using them as an example again, Activision added 50% to the price of the latest Call of Duty map pack even though almost half the content was recycled from the last installment. Likewise, there's been a huge increase in DLC for just about every game out there. A lot of the time, this material is a simple unlock for something that's already on the disc, or something that was already complete at launch and left out specifically for this purpose. Why? Because they aren't making money off of any new sales of the game, so it's better to either keep milking the people who already bought it or, better yet, get something from people who already bought used copies they saw no profit from.
Game companies are pushing you around because they suspect they can get away with it due to the inherent nature of their consumers. A lot of people are, perhaps not quite literally, addicted to video games. Imagine if tobacco or alcohol companies suddenly doubled their prices? There'd be an uproar, but people would keep right on shelling out the money because they think it's something they need.
I'm not saying this is 100% fact, I could be making the wrong conclusion, but the evidence is certainly all true. Maybe someone with enough power at EA really was stupid enough to think they'd save money but shutting down servers. To be honest, I don't know if that's better or worse.
Here's the rundown and Cliff's Notes:
1.) EA claims they shut down the servers because the game wasn't popular enough to justify the price of keeping them up.
2.) In reality, it costs practically nothing to keep a server running, and the smaller user base would actually make it far less expensive.
3.) A significant portion of EA's money problems can be traced to the sales of used games.
4.) An easy solution to force people to buy new games at launch is by shutting down their old ones at the same time.
5.) EA knows this is a potentially controversial decision, and feels the need to test the waters with their games with the smallest user base.
As far as I'm concerned, that is why the servers were shut down.
It was all a big experiment to either see how everyone would react, to test the logistics of the procedure, or even just to get people accustomed to the idea, and most importantly to see if they could get away with it on a larger scale in the future.
That's why I think a lot of you still fighting for this game are going about it the wrong way. Look, we're never going to get the game back. Even if they would consider agreeing to let us pay to run the servers, at this point it actually WOULD cost them money to get them back up again, even to hand them over to another third party. To even consider the idea is futile battle you aren't going to win.
What you can do is hit them where it hurts. If they really are just seeing how people would react? Let them know that you don't react well. Write letters and e-mails, and encourage other people to do so ( and please, don't come off like an angry bumbling moron who's furious about a video game and can't type a coherent sentence, that's not going to help ). More importantly, if you agree with what I had to say, or have at least made a conclusion that EA wasn't honest with us about their intentions and reasoning, spread the word. We're a small community, but the overall community of people playing EA games is not, and I imagine they won't be happy when they realize the direction things are headed. We could all complain to them every day and we'd still just be buzzing little gnats, but this doesn't just effect Conquest fans, it effects their entire customer base.
Most importantly, in conjunction with this, don't buy EA products, period. More important than that, let them know WHY you aren't buying them. Don't say "lol fukk you conkwest 4ever," say that some titles coming out look really interesting and that you might enjoy them, but you simply refuse to buy their products because you morally disagree with their business practices.
Look, I know I'm probably the last person who should be telling you all this, and getting into that much detail about it. This game never meant as much to me as it did to most of you. I was one of the few who just kind of shrugged and went "oh well" when the servers went down. See, I'm looking at it differently. This doesn't offend me as a Conquest player or fan of the game. This doesn't offend me as the orc warrior in red pajama pants running around chucking axes at your head.
This offends me as a consumer. This offends me as an american ( fuck yeah! ) who feels this country has already gone to complete hell solely because of the practices and machinations of corrupt corporations. Obviously, this isn't as serious as all that, not by a longshot, but it's certainly a quaint little microcosm of the problem, and certainly one that has a more practical way to fight.
Even if you think I'm crazy and don't believe any of this, at LEAST go and do your own research on the matter and see what your own conclusions are. If something means as much to you all as this game seems to, always, ALWAYS, keep yourself as educated and informed as possible, and always draw your own personal conclusions.
-Uncharacteristically Serious Stars, who didn't even mention vaginas once in the whole thing and is really proud of himself.
There has been, obviously, a lot of talk about the servers shutting down and what we can do about it, however fruitless such efforts may be. What I haven't seen, though, is anyone really talking about WHY the servers went down.
The general consensus, and the official party line, has been that there simply weren't enough players. It wasn't worth it for EA to pay the money to keep the servers up because enough people weren't playing. In those last few days, a lot of people were making the grossly misinformed assumption that people should play more to make the game look more popular. Well, I'm going to have to call bullshit on all of that.
Maybe when some people think of what a server is, they imagine some huge box sitting in a sterile room that's constantly attended by people making sure everything is up and running. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In general, and certainly in the case of gaming, a server is a box no bigger than your average PC, and sometimes more like the size of a laptop. Because that's all a game server really is, a computer designated for the sole task of connecting players. Remember how you could set up private servers through your own PC? You were literally doing the exact same thing EA was doing with their own servers, just with the limitations of a machine and internet connection not designed specifically for that purpose.
Servers can be tricky to get set up. Obviously, you need the hardware, and you need the staff to get it all rolling. That said, EA, as a video game company, obviously already has access to tons of these machines. Likewise, for a game this size, it takes maybe a small handful of people at most to get things rolling. The first few weeks of launch can be tricky as they have to tweak settings and get things going to handle the exact amount of regular traffic ( I'm sure you've all played multiplayer games with early launch troubles ) but after that, practically no maintenance is required. If there's ever a problem with the servers, the overwhelming majority of them are fixed with a simple press of a reset button.
When I was sixteen years old, my buddy and I were running like half a dozen servers out of his basement. Okay, so maybe he was running the servers and I was just hanging around doing all the shit-talking, whatever. Either way, we were doing everything from unlimited file storage and web hosting to yes, actual PC game servers ( any Counterstrike vets ever play on 'Nutsen?' ). None of this is particularly complicated and most of all, not particularly expensive. It was all old reworked PC's that, after initial setup, didn't require us to pay anything but the electric bill.
So not too long ago, the same friend asked why "that annoying THE ONE RING HAS RETURNED guy isn't yelling from your bedroom any more?" I explained the situation, and he just couldn't believe it. Now, as backstory, said friend now works for one of the largest data storage companies in the world, who's clientele includes everyone from Coca-Cola to the Pentagon ( and I'm still just hanging around talking shit, too ). The moral of this isn't just "my buddy said it was dumb," but it did get me thinking, and researching.
The idea that it wasn't cost-effective or even more ludicrous, too expensive to keep the servers up is complete bullshit. That far after launch, it would cost practically nothing to run the servers on a daily basis. In fact, it would be remarkably easier and less expensive BECAUSE it was a smaller community. I'm talking extremely cheap here, for each platform, at MOST, it would cost EA between ten and twenty dollars a month to keep them up, and that's a high estimate. Think about that: ONE copy of the game sold could realistically pay to keep the private servers running for a HALF A YEAR.
I will add, for you XBOX users, that Microsoft requires publishers to host their games from their own servers. This may be more expensive than my estimates. That said, given all the information about what it costs to run a server, especially in comparison to the size of the game, Microsoft would have to be SERIOUSLY ripping them off to make it cost much more than I predicted.
I'd say that's a pretty considerable profit margin, even for a game that didn't sell very well. So we can pretty safely say that the idea that EA was losing too much money, or really, any money at all, keeping the servers up is a downright lie. However, we also know that EA, and most of the other major game publishers, are pretty much hemorrhaging money right now. Yes, the worldwide economy is pretty terrible, but other entertainment industries aren't taking a hit this big. There HAS to be some X factor there that's causing that. There is. EA knows what it is, too. And that's what you should all be looking at, not WHY were the servers shut down, but WHY was EA losing this money, and WHY did they chose to take such a drastic step.
Let's make one thing perfectly clear, game companies don't make money by running servers. It's not like they get a shiny new penny from the tooth fairy every time you headshot a guy. Okay, some PC servers, like Valve's Steam and Blizzard's Battle.Net, both make some extra income by selling ad space for their loading screens and stuff, but this isn't present on consoles. The reason they put multiplayer in games is because it's a popular feature that drives sales. So the real question is this: WHY are EA's sales down, and what correlation does it have to their servers?
The answer may surprise you, but it's pretty obvious when you think about it:
USED GAMES.
Period, end of story. That's the mysterious x-factor here. Over the past few years, there's been an absolute explosion in the used games market. GameStop was always there, but now there's Amazon, Best Buy, rental stores, even independent and local shops getting in on the act, and even Ebay on a more personal level. The used game industry absolutely exploded over the past few years, and there's a good reason for that. Good for the stores that are selling them, bad for the companies that make them.
The company that made a game makes NO MONEY whatsoever off the sale of a used game. I'll say that again: when you buy a used game, 100% of the profit goes to the store you're buying it from. Why do you think GameStop encourages it so much? Why do you think they offer such crazy deals and always push for trade-ins? Why do you think you get such a reasonable price for any relatively new title? I know a lot of people think it's a rip-off, but go to any pawn shop in the world and you won't get HALF THE VALUE for a used item, especially one as potentially fickle as electronics.
This, of course, puts publishers in a hard spot. When a new game comes out, even if it's a major title, but especially if it's something smaller ( like Conquest ), a significant portion of their consumer base is willing to wait until they can get it cheaper, even if it's just a little cheaper only weeks after release, as a used game.
Game companies now make all their money at launch and launch alone. This explains their big push towards things like pre-order bonuses, limited or collector's editions, even generating artificial hype about the potential rarity of a title. Think about how hard it is to even FIND new copies of a lot of games after launch. Some stores ( and I know GameStop does this ) even artificially generate that rarity by under-ordering specifically for the purpose of making you buy the game used. Either way, if you go to pick up a game even a week or two after launch, they're going to have at least a few used copies, and even though it will only be maybe five dollars cheaper at that point, as a consumer you're still going to gravitate toward that.
This affects all publishers, but nobody is hit harder by it than EA. Why? Yes, EA publishes a lot of titles, but they have one market in particular completely monopolized: sports games. I know a lot of you don't really care for them, but you have to admit they make a hell of a lot more money pumping out a new Madden clone every year than they do from action/adventure titles.
And that's exactly the problem. Consumers have wizened up. Many have started to realize the only real difference in these games every year are the rosters, which they can manually update themselves in the last version, and that with such a big title, there's bound to be tons of trade-ins and they can just get this year's installment much cheaper in a few months and keep playing their current version to tide them over.
And THAT'S where the servers come in. The main point of those types of games is to play them online, and as long as they can play them online, they can wait on buying this year's version. As long as they can play them online.
Conquest wasn't the only game shut down that day. In fact, the majority of it's fallen brethren were just that, older sports games.
EA has openly stated they have and will consider shutting down last year's title the day the new one launches, forcing people to buy the new game or not play at all. They're not the only ones, even Activision, who puts out the massive gaming juggernaut that is Call of Duty, has publicly stated they're considering a 'pay to play' monthly fee for future installments. That would hit XBOX owners particularly hard, who are already paying a monthly fee just for multiplayer access alone.
Personally, there's only one conclusion I can draw there: THAT'S the reason the game was shut down. Not because they were losing money ( at the very least that can't be the reason, because they weren't ) but simply to see if they could get away with it.
They KNOW that this is a controversial move. They KNOW it could potentially hurt them. They took a baby step in that direction to see what would happen. They aren't the only ones. Using them as an example again, Activision added 50% to the price of the latest Call of Duty map pack even though almost half the content was recycled from the last installment. Likewise, there's been a huge increase in DLC for just about every game out there. A lot of the time, this material is a simple unlock for something that's already on the disc, or something that was already complete at launch and left out specifically for this purpose. Why? Because they aren't making money off of any new sales of the game, so it's better to either keep milking the people who already bought it or, better yet, get something from people who already bought used copies they saw no profit from.
Game companies are pushing you around because they suspect they can get away with it due to the inherent nature of their consumers. A lot of people are, perhaps not quite literally, addicted to video games. Imagine if tobacco or alcohol companies suddenly doubled their prices? There'd be an uproar, but people would keep right on shelling out the money because they think it's something they need.
I'm not saying this is 100% fact, I could be making the wrong conclusion, but the evidence is certainly all true. Maybe someone with enough power at EA really was stupid enough to think they'd save money but shutting down servers. To be honest, I don't know if that's better or worse.
Here's the rundown and Cliff's Notes:
1.) EA claims they shut down the servers because the game wasn't popular enough to justify the price of keeping them up.
2.) In reality, it costs practically nothing to keep a server running, and the smaller user base would actually make it far less expensive.
3.) A significant portion of EA's money problems can be traced to the sales of used games.
4.) An easy solution to force people to buy new games at launch is by shutting down their old ones at the same time.
5.) EA knows this is a potentially controversial decision, and feels the need to test the waters with their games with the smallest user base.
As far as I'm concerned, that is why the servers were shut down.
It was all a big experiment to either see how everyone would react, to test the logistics of the procedure, or even just to get people accustomed to the idea, and most importantly to see if they could get away with it on a larger scale in the future.
That's why I think a lot of you still fighting for this game are going about it the wrong way. Look, we're never going to get the game back. Even if they would consider agreeing to let us pay to run the servers, at this point it actually WOULD cost them money to get them back up again, even to hand them over to another third party. To even consider the idea is futile battle you aren't going to win.
What you can do is hit them where it hurts. If they really are just seeing how people would react? Let them know that you don't react well. Write letters and e-mails, and encourage other people to do so ( and please, don't come off like an angry bumbling moron who's furious about a video game and can't type a coherent sentence, that's not going to help ). More importantly, if you agree with what I had to say, or have at least made a conclusion that EA wasn't honest with us about their intentions and reasoning, spread the word. We're a small community, but the overall community of people playing EA games is not, and I imagine they won't be happy when they realize the direction things are headed. We could all complain to them every day and we'd still just be buzzing little gnats, but this doesn't just effect Conquest fans, it effects their entire customer base.
Most importantly, in conjunction with this, don't buy EA products, period. More important than that, let them know WHY you aren't buying them. Don't say "lol fukk you conkwest 4ever," say that some titles coming out look really interesting and that you might enjoy them, but you simply refuse to buy their products because you morally disagree with their business practices.
Look, I know I'm probably the last person who should be telling you all this, and getting into that much detail about it. This game never meant as much to me as it did to most of you. I was one of the few who just kind of shrugged and went "oh well" when the servers went down. See, I'm looking at it differently. This doesn't offend me as a Conquest player or fan of the game. This doesn't offend me as the orc warrior in red pajama pants running around chucking axes at your head.
This offends me as a consumer. This offends me as an american ( fuck yeah! ) who feels this country has already gone to complete hell solely because of the practices and machinations of corrupt corporations. Obviously, this isn't as serious as all that, not by a longshot, but it's certainly a quaint little microcosm of the problem, and certainly one that has a more practical way to fight.
Even if you think I'm crazy and don't believe any of this, at LEAST go and do your own research on the matter and see what your own conclusions are. If something means as much to you all as this game seems to, always, ALWAYS, keep yourself as educated and informed as possible, and always draw your own personal conclusions.
-Uncharacteristically Serious Stars, who didn't even mention vaginas once in the whole thing and is really proud of himself.
or question its ability to work since i have not had any prior experiance with buying 30 down 30 online