Hypothetically, If Targem broke away from the games publisher Gaijin?
Would the game be different?
Could Targem survive as a stand alone entity offering Crossout ?
Does Gaijin actually add any thing special to the game as is?
With the ever increasing monetization of the game, Who do you believe is actually behind the these radical changes and are they justified ?
(*Note Developers do this for a living has not been forgotten.)
Would the player base increase knowing Gaijin was removed?
In closing, I have my personal thoughts however, I would really enjoy picking the brains of the few that are on this forum. GLHF
I know they provide some of the support framework but outside of that I’m not 100% sure on everything they get out of the relationship. For example when they killed off the old forum, I asked about if we could switch to using a real bug tracker instead of using the forums to try to keep track of the bugs better. One of the Mods asked about it and Gaijin already had a web based one that they use with the other games. They set it up for them in a day. If they parted ways they would need to set up their own system for doing that.
I think the same goes with the store front (web wise). As one of the roles a publisher has is to act as a middle man between the dev and consumer. There’s also legal filings that would get done on their behalf via them. all of that would need to be replaced lawyers aren’t cheap either.
I don’t know what their contract looks like either. So they may or may not be able to switch publishers easily let alone self-publish. I also don’t really have much of an opinion on Gaijin itself so some of these I just can’t answer.
I always assumed that Gaijin bought Targem. So if Targem wanted out of that deal, they would need to find some money to buy themselves back. But that money would have to come from outside, since Targem’s profits are likely just going to Gaijin.
But also possible that I am completely
mistaken on how they’ve structured ownership and management!
I doubt if things would improve for the better if Targem left Gaijin. If anything, it would put more financial pressure on Crossout to be consistently profitable.
I believe it works more similar to a traditional publisher where there are services and bankroll exchanged for profit portions as a return. I’ve never seen their contract though so it’s hard for me to say that isn’t anything other than my speculation on it.
That’s possible, although I assumed it was more like when a larger record label buys a smaller one, but keeps it as a distinct imprint from the parent company.
Yeah, I got inspired to do a bit of research, and it looks like licensing agreements are the more common model, although there’s lots of variety within that.
No matter what their agreement, it wouldn’t be as simple as Targem deciding to jump ship. There would be contractual obligations, and Targem might have to prove that Gaijin wasn’t living up to its side of the agreement. Not to mention that Targem would have to find a new publisher.
Now if Targem found a new publisher that had deep pockets, they might be willing to essentially buy them out of their contract with Gaijin. I think that is very unlikely though, as I don’t see many big time publishers thinking that Crossout is a good gamble to throw a lot of money at.
The snail sure hasn’t taught Targem anything about handling player retention. You’d think the parent company would look at issues like that, since they have a financial interest in a subsidiary doing well.
Gaijin is likely the one who is guiding the monetization aspect, and they are focussed on the F2P model.
I would argue that most of their retention problems come from that model.
Interestingly, I found out recently that War Thunder also had a campaign of players bombing their Steam reviews with negative feedback as a protest against some aspect of how they monetize that game. While it sounds like they got some concessions out of it, it also sounds like they still aren’t happy. Ultimately I believe that organized spamming of negative reviews doesn’t accomplish much, other than hastening the death of the game.
Although I often think that many members of the forum will only be satisfied when the game does die, and are doing everything they can to discourage people from playing it to speed up that process. Making the forum useless as an information source isn’t great for the longterm health of the game.
With respect that many if not all of us on this forum has spent countless hours invested into this game. Along with actual cash invested . None of relish the idea of this games demise, Although one has to take into consideration how the business end of the functionality is now being handled. It is certainly not a new comer friendly game that we all supported over the years building it up through our dedication. Sure everyone is out to make a buck I don’t have an issue with that. However the monetization of the game has increased 10 fold & I personally don’t feel it is in the best of interest for us clients (Stock holders of virtual property ) to loose it due to the new business model. Be as it may, every thing does come to an end sooner or later. Not relishing the idea but its a fact. I still have countless hours &$ invested in W.O.T. I still play it from time to time only as a casual player. War Thunder awe heck, I loved the game but there again monetization increased and made it virtually too expensive to play even as a casual player. My goal is for Crossout to have a long prosperous life, That’s what concerns me how things are being handled now. Will my voice or any others change anyone’s minds? Doubtfully but if you don’t assert yourself then you cant complain when it does hit rock . Fact: If XO becomes as spendy as WT, You can count on it you won’t see me around. One can talk about Balance with game components, but how about balance for the game entirely? We need fresh blood in the game & this current crap isn’t bringing them in by droves.
I’ve made suggestions on how to make changes for this a number of times.
Most will lean to the vet, not just in tems of knowlege…
Many of us has done the same…
I think the majority of us have concerns on that.
I don’t think even new blood will help that much on that… You’re looking at two separate demographics that have to deal with defense, offence, mobility. Then over laying them and trying to line up the pit falls of each of the combinations. It’s an easier task to be looked at then it is to be actually done.
I think a lot of what you are talking about are problems that are intrinsic to the F2P model, at least when it comes to games that aren’t massively popular.
I mean, we can choose to believe that the monetization aspects we don’t like are being added because Gaijin is greedy and dumb. But I think the truth is more that these games are struggling to stay consistently financially viable, and they’re constantly trying new ways to make it work.
I don’t know that much about the gaming industry, but I suspect it struggles with many of the same issues that the music and media industries do, and I do know a fair amount about those.
To me, it looks like they’re throwing a lot of stuff at the wall, hoping that something works. At the same time, praying that they don’t sacrifice player retention to monetization and go into a rapid death spiral of long queue times scaring off even us die hards.
The real balance struggle is how to give players enough free stuff to keep numbers up, while also getting them to fork over enough money to keep the game running and growing. It’s a tightrope that the internet has forced a lot of different industries to walk, and one that’s a lot harder to pull off if you aren’t already at the top.
Perhaps, but not for the best. Comparing WT and XO I find lots of wild thing that are not of Gaijin doing.
Gaijin has nothing to do with fact that devs don’t play their game and have only basic grasp of what’s going on in it.
Perhaps, perhaps not, who cares. What you should care about is if not for gaijin you would have lost access to the game already due to sanctions.
Lots of technical support I think.
Could be any of them. I don’t have confidence any of them. I know devs are weirdos obviously, and gaijins also pull bunch monetization tricks on WT although they tread carefully over more serious and successful project.
Sanctions, remember? Other than that, some people might go check if things are different, and they most likely find they are not and say meh. Biggest tragedy of XO is not even poor management which isn’t all that terrible but most people don’t have ability and determination to build thing and only play xo as pvp game which gets rather toxic.
