"Online game giant NCsoft is to restructure its U.S. game studio in Austin, Texas, which has inflicted a massive loss to the parent company by failing in a six-year blockbuster project."
Thus starts the rather cold article in the Korean Times, don't worry it's in English. The studio is Richard Garriott's and the blockbuster to be was Tabula Rasa.
It seems Tabula Rasa so far "only" made 5 billion won ($5.3 million) which is nu cat-pee, unless you compare it to the development cost of 100 billion won ($106 million). Ouch!
So now NCSoft is going to restructure the Studio.
Lets hope for the TR fans sticking with this game that this isn't the start of a slide like the one made by that other over-budgeted game released unfinished and too early during 2007. By which I refer to Vanguard, Saga of drama, né Heroes, which is now being kept on life-support by a skeleton crew and an intern.
CoX was around $40-$50 Mil.
WOW's budget is a trade-secret but may have gone beyond TR's.
Blizzard now says they can do a WOW-quality MMOG for less than $100 Mil. Mind, WOW makes $75 Mil in subion fees each month. More, since that's calculated on US & European subscribers both paying $15 a month. EU subscribers pay more due to the exchange rate.
Guess I should have seen that coming, both you and Phe had reservations as to the staying power of the game. Did not realize it was that bleak, 100 million invested that will not really ever be recovered at that rate, considering that they will have ongoing expenses and once the bulk of the subscribers reach 50, ouch!
5,000,000 / 4 months UP = 1,250,000
1,250,000 * 12 months UP = 15,000,000
100,000,000 * 15,000,000 Earnings = 6.67 Years (ouch)
