Whales
- Thread starter Shadow Reaper
- Start date
I have to agree with the sentiment that 'whales' are not the issue.
If anything, it is the people that scream that anything that can't be soloed with an Arrow or Gladius is P2W that are the issue, as they fundamentally do not understand balance due to being blinded by their Luke Skywalker fantasy.
If anything, it is the people that scream that anything that can't be soloed with an Arrow or Gladius is P2W that are the issue, as they fundamentally do not understand balance due to being blinded by their Luke Skywalker fantasy.
It's always amusing, in a clinical psychiatry sense, the levels of entitlement and jealousy inherent in the line of thought that 'whales' are the problem.
"If those people who are doing the enabling thing would change their behaviour it would force these other people to give me what I want so I can be happy." Note the utter lack of personal responsibility within this thinking.
"If those people who are doing the enabling thing would change their behaviour it would force these other people to give me what I want so I can be happy." Note the utter lack of personal responsibility within this thinking.
Unfortunately, Whales ARE the problem...just not the problem people are thinkings.
Whales have enabled CIG to do scope creep after scope creep, enabled them to throw away millions upon millions of dollars of development (Theatres of War anyone?) because there were no consequences to doing so.
Had CIG been on a strict budget without whales propping them up, Chris Roberts would have been forced to accept the good, instead of striving for the perfect.
I have seen what happens when teachers, backers, and employers enable people to be wasteful and throw away stuff that was 90-95 percent there...because it would never get 100 percent there in the current form. Nothing gets done. My nephew had teachers (including University professors) that coddled him, enabling him to turn in assignments VERY late (sometimes months late) with no penalty (my teachers took 10 percent off the top every day it was late)
When he went to his latest University, he hit a real culture shock as they were old school. Any assignment turned in late was not accepted. He has had to learn to turn in "sub par" (his words) work which is still getting As and high Bs, but work he is not happy with. He seemed shocked when I told him "Good for your teachers"...because if he continued on his path, he would never be able to keep a job because he would never finish a project.
Whales have enabled CIG to do scope creep after scope creep, enabled them to throw away millions upon millions of dollars of development (Theatres of War anyone?) because there were no consequences to doing so.
Had CIG been on a strict budget without whales propping them up, Chris Roberts would have been forced to accept the good, instead of striving for the perfect.
I have seen what happens when teachers, backers, and employers enable people to be wasteful and throw away stuff that was 90-95 percent there...because it would never get 100 percent there in the current form. Nothing gets done. My nephew had teachers (including University professors) that coddled him, enabling him to turn in assignments VERY late (sometimes months late) with no penalty (my teachers took 10 percent off the top every day it was late)
When he went to his latest University, he hit a real culture shock as they were old school. Any assignment turned in late was not accepted. He has had to learn to turn in "sub par" (his words) work which is still getting As and high Bs, but work he is not happy with. He seemed shocked when I told him "Good for your teachers"...because if he continued on his path, he would never be able to keep a job because he would never finish a project.
If you backed this with financial numbers I'd consider it, but back-of-the-napkin calculations (read: speculation based on incomplete data) don't support the idea. Backers 'backed' and the distribution of how many vs how much is actually irrelevant. They got enough, from enough people, to expand the scope. The more likely alternative to this isn't a "good enough" game, it's project failure. This is especially likely given how long some of the fundamentals have taken to develop.
As someone who actually playtested Theaters of War in Evocati, the idea wasn't that great (timed MOBA with optional goals) and the execution was.. rough. But it wasn't wasted at all - the Hathor satellite missions are a direct descendent with many of the ToW assets being updated and utilized.
*hands @Thalstan a beer and a fresh tin of salt..
That’s the key. That work always be on track to evolve and not run into a total dead end.
My take on the OP topic: If the game wouldn’t exist on the track it’s on without whales, complainers about whales would never have been here in the first place. So the fact that they are here to complain about whales now is because whales donated a lot in the first place. Whales enabled them to be here to complain. So they can accept that and STFU, else go do what they otherwise would have been doing if the whales had never given them that opportunity in the first place. When others loose their minds about this it’s a sign not just fear of missing out, envy of another’s fleet size, or monetary concerns, but borderline clinical depression. Do we sweat life like this when some rich dude pulls up next to us on at a red light in a Ferrari ready to race? No. If we jumped out of our car and chewed the guy out on the road for what he’s driving we’d be arrested and submitted for psychiatric testing. We’re talking about people freaking out about a video game by comparison. Same mentality the OP video expresses, more or less.
My take on the OP topic: If the game wouldn’t exist on the track it’s on without whales, complainers about whales would never have been here in the first place. So the fact that they are here to complain about whales now is because whales donated a lot in the first place. Whales enabled them to be here to complain. So they can accept that and STFU, else go do what they otherwise would have been doing if the whales had never given them that opportunity in the first place. When others loose their minds about this it’s a sign not just fear of missing out, envy of another’s fleet size, or monetary concerns, but borderline clinical depression. Do we sweat life like this when some rich dude pulls up next to us on at a red light in a Ferrari ready to race? No. If we jumped out of our car and chewed the guy out on the road for what he’s driving we’d be arrested and submitted for psychiatric testing. We’re talking about people freaking out about a video game by comparison. Same mentality the OP video expresses, more or less.
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I beg to differ on one aspect, Unless we call the majority of backers whales, typical whales seem to be a drop in the bucket in terms of priority care. If whales were financially influential to the game like other free to play games, then I would assume CIG would give more care and preference to them. Instead I have seen the erosion to veteran MMHC members and the general vibe that was given to concierge and higher backers. TBH when Sandi was in charge of marketing it felt less corporate and more real. When some faceless dude from Blizzard or where ever came in to take over the marketing, that's when I noticed the erosion happening towards care of "whales". But look at the growth, the presumption I made is that it's just more and more new backers dropping a few hundred bucks each, that are generating the majority of this new revenue. I think being a whale at this stage unless you drop a quarter of a million dollars, has become somewhat meaningless in the sea of new revenue coming in. Am I wrong?
Aye the gentleman in the vid has a cool calm viewpoint.
When talk of whales rears, I look at where we started. 2012 and the kickstarter. It wasn't normal to pay over shelf price on a videogame. DLC and Microtransactions and Lootboxes were a thing but not the commonplace mechanic games are built around today. £40/£50 was how much we expected to pay on a game and not much more. You were a whale If You dropped $300. Crazy money on a game, almost unheard of.
But time moved on. Markets emerged, monetization went mainstream and single games of they are lucky have became a destination for hobby spend. Now to get all the DLC for a game you'd be looking at $300 minimum just to get the full expiriance. What would a whale have to spend today to be called the same?
There be whales and there be spending your monthly disposable income on a single game like it's a hobby. Monthly repeated income goes beyond simple whales and needs a different name entirely which helps single games make as much money in a month SC brings in a year.
I think the Whale topic, while yes still relevant in some ways, is getting left in the past. People don't just simply whale a game anymore, they hobby them.
When talk of whales rears, I look at where we started. 2012 and the kickstarter. It wasn't normal to pay over shelf price on a videogame. DLC and Microtransactions and Lootboxes were a thing but not the commonplace mechanic games are built around today. £40/£50 was how much we expected to pay on a game and not much more. You were a whale If You dropped $300. Crazy money on a game, almost unheard of.
But time moved on. Markets emerged, monetization went mainstream and single games of they are lucky have became a destination for hobby spend. Now to get all the DLC for a game you'd be looking at $300 minimum just to get the full expiriance. What would a whale have to spend today to be called the same?
There be whales and there be spending your monthly disposable income on a single game like it's a hobby. Monthly repeated income goes beyond simple whales and needs a different name entirely which helps single games make as much money in a month SC brings in a year.
I think the Whale topic, while yes still relevant in some ways, is getting left in the past. People don't just simply whale a game anymore, they hobby them.