Will this have any impact on Gemstone?
#David Whatley out as Simutronics CEO
pearl pewter
mellow pond
Ope.
wanton current
Maybe it has to do with how badly Galahad 3093 is doing on steam. Was under development for the past couple of years with a team of 30 or so people i think. It had a bit of a following in beta but they changed a bunch of stuff right before early release, charged for the game at early release, then switched it back to f2p. Game is dead. Can log on and maybe have 1 other person playing.
pliant thorn
The valid url since the above was giving me google redirect errors.
feral ravine
You mean Cyberstrike 3?
stoic kindle
Maybe it has to do with how badly Galahad 3093 is doing on steam. Was under deve...
Yea hopefully someone sees how much the MUDs are making over here and tosses some of that money they kept bleeding into failed project back into the stuff that makes them money.
I'd mostly like to see this in promoting the games and paying staff more than "shares" for stuff during pay events. A few paid full time coders could go a long way, I'd bet
simple lily
I would love to see more resources put into GS instead of feeling like our game funds other development.
feral ravine
I don't necessarily think more resources need to be forced into it... I just think the MUDs have been the beating heart of simutronics for so long, and have grown cancerous protuberance limbs that have required severing over the years. It'd be nice for it to actually be appreciated, and not hamstrung by a series of failed endeavors.
Even if we could just tone down the monetization a little bit since we're not funding REAL DRAGON FLIGHT PHYSICS... I mean, for all of the conversations we've had, that's the $10/month, more character slots stuff right there, or a little more marketing. Or perhaps a little slowdown on the gear inflation or other stuff.
simple lily
Development staff paid market wages would go a long way. A Community Manager. A CEO that can maintain staff like the website person, marketing person, etc.
Those are things I'd like to see.
feral ravine
But would they bring in enough numbers to offset their salaries? I mean... for the good of our community... we'd love it... but if we assume an adequate developer is $100k/yr, that's 556 standard accounts' monthly fees for a year. Would we anticipate a return on investment of that large of an uptick due to having one full time Dev?
From a business standpoint, I don't see that as a worthwhile investment. A marketing person? Maybe, but I'd rather leverage existing resources that likely exist across Stillfront. Even a CEO assumes the studio needs to be retained as a separate entity, which I also disagree with. Individual IPs could be managed independently as steady state operations, sans CEO oversight under an established delivering wing.
simple lily
Simutronics has had web and marketing personnel before. They are just bad at maintaining them. While those roles weren't dedicated to GS solely, it did help. It would free up Wyrom's time to be more present with the game itself, which has been an issue over this past year. I am in the dark about our profits so I am unaware how many full time staff we could maintain solely for GS. But I don't super love our current structure with profit sharing for GMs. I can't answer your questions without the numbers, but I know what I as a player would like: Salary and benefits for our staff.
At any rate, it's all hypothetical. I just find it hard to believe we can't afford to invest more into the game itself with the advent of Duskruin and the like. I hope this brings positive changes to Simutronics and to the game itself.
feral ravine
Agreed. I don't think it could be worse. At the very least, I hope it's stillfront putting a microscope to the Simutronics product offerings to further analyze and determine how to best utilize. Also, if it meant that permanent bans for scamming players could be ACTUALLY PERMANENT... that alone would be huge... rather than being let in when they cry above Wyrom's paygrade
simple lily
Embrace and moderate the secondary market? Oh my. 😮
simple lily
I would have mixed feelings about that, not sure I'd actually want to see that happen. Anyway, just getting around to reading this article Tysong posted. 30 development staff for Galahad! Yes, we can afford to do better by Gemstone. I don't begrudge the game making a profit, I begrudge those profits being siphoned to fund other endeavors.
feral ravine
And there's the official announcement
vast harbor
Link?
simple lily
#general-announcements message
fallow needle
Move Simucon to Cancun now. 
vagrant pollen
It’s not enough, they have to top the fame leaderboards
pliant thorn
It’s not enough, they have to top the fame leaderboards
Zaoloo for CEO?
vagrant pollen
..I didn’t think this through
feral ravine
..I didn’t think this through
celest pasture
Just to touch here, I can't speak about older projects from before my time as PM, but I do know that they didn't take money from GS/DR and pour it into new projects. Stillfront was paying for those projects.
Absolutely correct that we haven't had a lot of luck with marketing, IT, etc, but we're stepping into a new era and hopefully we'll be in a better place. These things take time though, so I just ask for patience. Don't expect overnight changes.
sour mountain
would love to see them hire a dedicated programmer to figure out the engine and optimize the game as much as possible so that people can have giant invasions and not bring the entire game world down, people can make giant roaming death balls and slaughter things all day in an unreadable spam of messaging, maybe something crazy like "character corruption because they had too many items on them" becomes a thing of the past.
tight moss
Just to touch here, I can't speak about older projects from before my time as PM...
My reaction to that is....money is fungible. If GS profits go to still front and then still front is paying for Galahad development, well at the end of the day it's still coming from the same pot so to speak. And let's be clear that it's not like this is the only time it's happened - cough cough hero journey, dragons of elanthia cough cough. But its ok for gs to fund other stuff, people just want to get a fair share of development. I do always wonder if you guys should cut back on the extra character fees. After a certain point imo, the extra characters and the player engagement, mtx to gear them up, additional population, etc may be worth more to the game than the $2 per month. On my basic account I only had 1 extra and after a while, just got bored with that acct and closed it.