In theory I absolutely agree with you, but I'm not sure that's the most practical thing if the next game is Planet Coaster 2. I could be wrong though, as I'm sure they could run two teams and put out content for both games. The question more is would/will they do it. Planet Coaster will probably be successful though that's not guaranteed. If it's something untested there's always a chance it's not successful, and in that case in theory they could run back to Planet Zoo to release more content. Doubtful but not impossible.
Frontiers Financial Report is Out š
- Thread starter QueenCinna
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I mean the time until PC2 will Release and it is even Not clear that PC2 will be the Game release next Winter, or? Stopping Support this Winter means at least 3 quarters of less DLC Sales from one of your two main Sellers which is Not compensated by a new Game. After PC2 Release it is surely a different thing as Frontier would have a Game compensating the loss then.
Right, itās all theoretical hypotheticals right now anyways. Definitely room for error in our assumptions
Even if PC2 is out or the new Planet game is out, why can't PZ co-exist with the same time? Just have a smaller team pumping out DLCs or maybe even expansion. As long as its profitable, they should still continue PZ support. AT LEAST give as rigs for fish, and, birds.
Release an animal a week that's like $1-2 for continuing profit
Eh... an animal a week is too ambitious. Maybe a month or every 2 months.
When they shift their development team for their next game - which is what they're going to do - one animal a week is probably way too much to ask. I mean, it takes whole teams to make five to eight animals per quarter. There are, on average (because release dates don't line up perfectly), 12 weeks per quarter with full staffing, and not all of those staff work on the animals as one unit - you've got different people for concept art, texture, animation, modelling, research, soundboarding, and so on. So all that + 12 weeks to create at maximum seven habitat animals and one exhibit animals amounts to one animal in 1.5 weeks.
Again, with full staffing. Reduce that, and you'd be looking at, who knows, one animal per quarter, maybe?
Nobody wants support to end, but it is going to. The game can't live forever - eventually it would start running at a loss, and then the quality would drop or the price would go up, or worse, both.
Edit: Worth mentioning the financial side of things too, since we're in this thread - people sometimes talk about this game without thinking about where the money they make actually goes. If Frontier as a whole is running at a loss, it doesn't matter how profitable an individual IP is. Running at a loss impacts the whole company; they won't just cut out the parts failing, sack those staff, and pour all their resources into a four year old game that, despite still being profitable, is seeing a steady reduction in overall engagement every financial year.
One animal every so often (because a week is practically impossible even with full staffing) isn't enough to pay the bills.
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Releasing one animal per month when they run out of DLC ideas could be an interesting experiment to try.
Also you are arguing a straw man. Nobody is saying Frontier should increase or devote all resources to PZ just because it is profitable, only that they should maintain some support until they can find an alternative revenue stream which they realistically will not be able to do until late 2024 earliest.
Didn't see this initially. It's not a straw man if you're paying enough attention to the way people talk about things around here. The implication a lot of people put forth is that they think PZ being profitable now is the same thing as it being profitable forever while ignoring the fact that engagement is actually lowering. My comment was not directed at anyone in particular, but rather heading off what I see as an inevitable poor counterargument (that "PZ is profitable, therefore shut up, support will never end, la la la" or something to that effect).
A lot of people use the argument, "Why would they end support for their most profitable IP?" as though it's surefire proof that support isn't ever ending (or at least that it's not ending soon). The answer is because "profitable" doesn't automatically mean "guaranteed success". For Frontier to remain afloat, they need more than one brand. JWE and PZ can't do it alone, which is clear, because Frontier is running at a loss. They need something to reinvigorate their base and bring in a large influx of new capital, which always means a new game (and we know they are working on a new game). A new game means a reallocation of resources from one project to another, which means a wind-down period on the older project (PZ).
At best I give PZ one more year. Call it gut instinct. That said, I'm prepared for it to end some time next year, maybe with the Spring DLC, maybe one or two more after that, we'll see.
In these conversations people often say things along the lines of āIf itās still profitable, theyāll keep supporting it.ā.. this isnāt true - the question isnāt whether itās profitable - itās whether the same resources could be more profitable (and / or leads to less overall risk)ā¦ if they could (e.g. by being directed into another game, like PC2) then thatās worth doing, although there are lots of complications. For example, how steep is the player decline? How confident are the financial predictions of each? and lots more but itās certainly a lot more complex than āif it makes a profit itāll be supported.ā
Average player count so far is steady this year compared to last year. Maybe slightly lower, but not by much.
The problem with this argument is they have other titles that are less profitable that they could end support first. For example, Elite. Or some Foundry games that they said didn't make a positive ROI. In any case, Frontier is expanding their workforce by acquiring Complex Games so they have more resources to work with.
I think 2024 is a lock simply because if we assume the new Planet game is released in November 2024, the Winter 2024 DLC will already be under development. So assuming the new Planet game is a smashing success, Frontier will release their trademark mega last DLC for PZ in 2025.
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The thing is that we have been hearing and saying this (including myself) since 2 years ago. Is a fake prediction that can be and has been repeated with every DLC we get, and yet still we are getting more DLCs. Eventually a prediction of "this is last year" will be right, obviously, but it's really something that isn't more true now than it was a few DLCs ago.
Things that are true: support will end eventually
Things that are also true: we have no idea when that will happen and people have been doomspeaking "this for sure is the last pack because xyz" for nearly three years.
Could support end this December? Maybe. Is support already over and we don't know it yet? Also maybe. Is support going to continue another 5 years because it turns out that the niche audience of zoo fanatics who obsessively buy every dlc is a good, assured, low-risk revenue stream while Frontier works on other things? Also possible.
We don't know. All we know is they say they'll keep making packs as long as we keep asking for them, so let's keep brainstorming packs for our favourite animals and hope for the best.
Things that are also true: we have no idea when that will happen and people have been doomspeaking "this for sure is the last pack because xyz" for nearly three years.
Could support end this December? Maybe. Is support already over and we don't know it yet? Also maybe. Is support going to continue another 5 years because it turns out that the niche audience of zoo fanatics who obsessively buy every dlc is a good, assured, low-risk revenue stream while Frontier works on other things? Also possible.
We don't know. All we know is they say they'll keep making packs as long as we keep asking for them, so let's keep brainstorming packs for our favourite animals and hope for the best.
That pretty much my opinion, I know it's going to end, and I accept that - but can only guess as to when, if there is demand and reasonable profit I can't imagine it being pulled preemptively
I haven't been saying it. I only started saying it when the very obvious and recent signs you and others are ignoring started to become clear. Frontier is running at a loss, player engagement shrinks every quarter (the DLC spikes are getting smaller), high-demand animals are being pumped out in a hurry, the pool of "mainstream" species is ever-shrinking (the game is therefore losing some of the appeal it has to general audiences outside our tiny little circle of major animal nerds), Frontier is working on a new entry to the franchise. It's not a bonkers concept that beggars belief.
But I get it. "Support ending" is a scary bogeyman. It's everyone's favourite game and the idea of it ending sends chills down the spine. All I want is for people to look ahead and see that finish line. Whether it's December (I doubt it), March/April, June (like Planet Coaster) or early 2024 doesn't matter. It's not going to go on forever.
Every time I see some variation this word, I stop reading. It's a desperate attempt to discredit a reasonable position. Two years ago, yeah, it probably had some value because the end-times talk was borderline hysterical. It's not hysterical anymore. The people, myself included, who see the finish line aren't panicking over it like it's an apocalyptic scenario. Once again, the game has had a good, long life, with a ton more content than we could have imagined back in November 2019. A bunch of species a lot of us never thought would make it in have made it in. Going out on a high note is not a bad thing.
What is reasonable profit? If I have a machine that spits out 10c coins and another that spits out 20c coins, and together they cost 35c of the accumulated cash to operate, that isn't profitable. The 20c coin machine makes more than the 10c coin machine, but together they aren't covering the overheads. I could say, "My 20c coin machine is my most profitable machine and it's the one everyone uses the most," but it doesn't mean much if I'm still losing 5c every time it gets used.
But the loss seems not to be because of Planet Zoo and JWE2 but dut or the other Games especially F1 Manager. Thinking about further support for a game compensating this a bit until a save new game comes to the market. And the only save cashcow for Frontier is PC2 in my opinion. And we even do not know If PC2 will come in 2024 or 2025. New Games like for example Planet Football or Planet Cities always come with a risk. Planet Football could be the Same Like F1 Manager and Planet Cities would have a String competitor with Cities: Skylines 2 at the Market.
Honestly the whole discussion becomes tiring somehow. We do not know nothing and there are no signs in either direction in my opinion. The only thing we know that there will be an end. Whenever it will be. And If you Take into Account the Last comments about the Game that we can expect at least more content into 2024. Everything else is Just pure speculation.
sure itās speculation, but itās not ājustā speculation - itās opinions based on evidence. Like it or not, the game will end at some point - probably before it becomes unprofitableā¦ itāll be when Frontier has a reasonable belief that projected profits from the resources devoted to PZ are likely to be lower than the profits that are likely to be made by those resources being devoted to something else (or general cost-cutting)ā¦ Many factors, most of which we canāt see, will go into this analysis: the trend of sales, potential new content (and how much it costs to develop) and projections of expected profits from something else (especially if, like a new āplanetā game, many of the same team of designers etc. are likely to be used for to maintain a consistent brand style)ā¦
It was ādoomspeakingā when people predicted the end of the game in 2020 based on fewer packs than PC got bring released (especially in the context of COVID) but, at some point, the probability of the gameās support finishing rises to the point where itās very reasonable to think itās possible,ā¦ at some point it will be probable - where each of those points is is of course speculation, but itās no longer unreasonable to think itās possibly or even probably approaching.
Evidence-backed speculation on one side, and pure cope-based speculation on the other. Might as well argue science vs religion.
My take on this whole discussion: I do not think anyone thinks the game will go on forever, we are not as stupid as some of you seems to believe. The thing is, maybe the game will end in spring, maybe it will go on for another year or two, we simply do not know. But as of now, there is no indication of the end, so it is really tireing to constantly read about it.
Just my two cents, I have stopped contributing to threads like "if there is only 2 packs left, what animals you want" and the like. Not because people cannot talk about the inevidable end, but because I am simply tired of it. Call it a blissful ignorance or whatever. When the end will come, it will come, but until there is any indication of it, I would rather not constanly talk about it.
Just my two cents, I have stopped contributing to threads like "if there is only 2 packs left, what animals you want" and the like. Not because people cannot talk about the inevidable end, but because I am simply tired of it. Call it a blissful ignorance or whatever. When the end will come, it will come, but until there is any indication of it, I would rather not constanly talk about it.
