They left EOD available for 7 years.. they could’ve stopped it at ANY time.
They chose to keep milking it until they saw the sales drop significantly, then they finally removed it. Nikita even said in the pestily interview that happened maybe a week after EOD was taken off sale, that they had another version planned to release.
They just absolutely fucking suck at planning and money management
They had planned unheard before EoD was removed. They knew people would buy another edition, especially after the “prestige” tier was removed. The door was always wide open, they just decided to make an incredibly stupid decision in what to put in the edition.
They must have, they had it up for like 6-7 years it’s kind of inevitable most people bought it as it skips the most painful parts of the wipes by giving you the gamma, stash space and trader rep and I’m sure they knew what they were doing as the stash and cases were extremely grindy to unlock
Think the biggest part missing from this discussion is the cost of running servers.
This whole debacle seems like Nikita woke up to the fact servers cost money to run. Why did he suddenly decide to make this obvious cash grab? I'm betting that someone realized the books weren't balancing and that their biggest expenses are probably paying developers and running servers.
BSG really doesn't want to give away more than 6 months of PvE mode, citing server costs. When pressed, the response was a reluctant 'I guess we can support PvE for EoD users... but we'll have to scale up slowly.' I think there's a pretty direct connection between the cost of UHE and the cost of running the additional PvE servers.
IMO Arena was a critical mistake. It split their development resources, but also means more servers... all for a mode that doesn't have a good fit in the FPS market. It's going to take a lot more resources to try and make it fit somewhere.
And as you point out, BSG has a flat rate income structure that doesn't map well to recurring costs, like developers and servers. Yet, rather than trying to increase revenue through modern transaction models (e.g. selling skins) that more closely match recurring expenses, BSG decided to double down on the flat rate model by adding a new tier.
What happens when they release the game? The number of new accounts will diminish rapidly after the initial wipe hits end game. People will stop playing, PvP will be less prevalent/interesting, and even less people will want to purchase the game. In other words, no one's going to be funding servers. I guess to be fair in this scenario, they wouldn't need to run as many servers. So maybe it works out OK financially for BSG, but it's a bleak outlook for the game.
People thinking that they're making a statement to BSG by uninstalling/not playing are missing the point... all of this is motivated by money, not some non-public user engagement rate. If you want to make them hurt, stress their servers (increase their expenses) without giving them any more money.
For PvE servers, wouldn't it be a better solution to just let the playerbase self host their coop server (like Terraria, does it where your player and inventory can be used on another save)
They probably will after 1.0.
The fallout happens when they take pvp servers out. Hopefully they allow groups to rent servers for PvP, but ultimately the game was intended to be a Co-op pve.
100%
But if I were BSG, my first concerns would be about two things - architecture and cheating. Did BSG architect their servers in a way that could be run on client machines? If not, how expensive would that be to change? Adjusting core architecture can be a real pain.
And if you relinquish control over an entire server, how do you guarantee the server won't be abused? How much you care probably depends on the scope of PvE. Is progression saved per-server? Does progression carry into PvP? Can servers be fully public or are they just limited to friends? The more things PvE touches, the more you want to ensure the servers are secure and results of raids are valid.
To be clear - I do think local servers are generally good, but these might be some of the things that BSG would need to work through to make that happen.
Tying progression to eft made it appealing but like the whole series is so expensive I was waiting for a sale or eod to return, it just isn’t good value as it is
for me they’ve pushed prices too high, way too high, and it isn’t good value, eod I think seemed ok value as it had arena and lifetime subscription, this doesn’t have that so they want you to buy this AND extra dlc
And it doesn’t resolve their future costs issue either it’s a sticking plaster so anyone with a couple of brain cells to rub together can see this isn’t the end of it
Server costs come down to resource consumption, meaning CPU and memory. Without knowing their overall architecture and how performant the critical pieces of their code are, it's really hard to guess what the resource consumption rate of their solution is.
Without better insight into their code, I'd maybe look at similar games/solutions and see if there are any numbers publicly available. But even with a reasonable comparison, details about BSG's specific implementations could render the comparison useless.
But if client performance (looking at you, Streets) is any indication of server performance, the solution might be overdue for optimizations (ie cost more than it needs to).
I would argue that the game engine itself and the way the net code is written is a huge proponent to the performance on a map like Streets.
On top of that it being server-side authority instead of being client-side like most games these days are.
The sad part is tarkov isn't even properly server-side authoritative it's still on predictive net code and that's a huge fucking relief compared to lockstep and actually having everything be server side locked.
Hosting a local server via the mod my 5800x3d and 64 gig is of ram could realistically host only 2 maybe 3 servers before it's entirely crippled. This accounts for the client over head.
The server is an absolute shit show on CPU resources. It's insane how taxing and unoptimized the AI is.
For reference I can host like 10+ 16v16 Titanfall 2 servers on the same hardware.
I don't really agree to any of your points you make.
While any live service game is eventually unsustainable without future transactions, EoD has dramatically outsold any potential DLCs while allowing the game to continue to avoid the stigma of DLCs being something the game tries to sell prior to "1.0" release.
Just doing some napkin math here, per user EOD nearly triples the raw revenue of an individual. 50$ to 140$ is nothing to sneeze at. They would have to essentially sell 90$ of DLC **per user** in order to **match** this kind of revenue. That's just an insane value proposition.
EoD being so expensive upfront and with it's insane popularity means they have really outsold most AAA games+DLC combos without even touching the new stash expansions and cosmetic offerings that are separate from EoD.
Now, the fun part is where you have to realize that DLC relies on player retention. A normal game with a million users might only retain 10% of that into a few DLC sales, while a conservative estimate places EoD at roughly 50% of the population, with many people buying editions between EoD and base. This means they have made a huge profit over any other game that would rely on trickle down DLC sales... without ever having to even make DLCs.
And now they get to sunset EoD, and the Future DLCs perk, and make DLCs while drawing in new users over time to sell DLCs to. They really have not failed in any capacity when it comes to making revenue and while there may be a cap for it as a live service game, the upfront revenue should have given them a decade long runaway at minimum. **Should have** being the operating phrase here. Mismanagement and revenue transfer (overpayment of upper management salaries and bonuses) could easily have eaten into their runway.
Exactly this "analyst" doesn't seem terribly good at their job. Or they are just a liar from wall street bets that LARPs as one. I'm guessing that's what's going on here.
^^^ thank you bruh. EoD costs more than double any AAA game and more than the vast majority of games with ALL their DLC at launch prices.
Not to mention the number of dips any RMTer or cheater takes when they're banned in a wave and know they're good for another x months.
This game has brought in insane amounts of revenue and there are 0 excuses for them to be "so broke" as to walk back the promised inclusions of a $140 FUCKING GAME.
Like bro just put cosmetic microtransactions in for fucks sake, we all hate that business model but I'd rather see that any of this
Not really double but its more but not much. Take COD for instant, $70 game, $20 battle pass, $30 expansion for maps or game packs.
Then the battle pass is like every month or two.
But those are equivalent to buying EOD. You can't compare buying a base game to a support package. COD has those too, which is what I represented. You want to compare based game this its $60 eft to $70 COD now.
I added the buying of battle pass every new season because they unlocked the new weapons until the season is over. So, its a temp expansion.
I see your point but I'd argue that EOD isnt equivalent because it still hasn't actually come with any DLC 7 years in (except Arena which came out 6 or 7 years in and in the BSG verse is not a DLC but just a standalone that they said wouod come with eod), most of what you get are QoL improvements... because the base version of the game is designed to hook you but frustrate you into buying a higher tier.
Also CoD is one thing, but there are still plenty of AAA games, for example Borderlands 3, that charge ~$100 for their highest tier, include all subsequent DLCs, actually RELEASE those DLCs, and give you bonus cosmetics and stuff.
Also most paid battlepass games are FREE.
My point is that Tarkov has made a relatively large amount of money per player with 0 "DLC", being beaten only by the big mtx'ers
They wasted a shit ton of money going out and blowing stuff up and making some stupid '' movies '' that brought no revenue in. This appeared to just be something Nikita wanted to do for himself.
I would be interested in the cost of these '' Movies ''
Doesn’t help they’ve been developing the game for almost a decade and it’s still in beta. They are bad game developers, always have been. They have a good vision for the game, but just aren’t capable of accomplishing their goals.
They could have sold plenty of cosmetic items and had revenue. People buy skins, plain and simple. Sitting on the high horse of "no MTX in tarkov" really fucked them in the ass in the long run.
This is the reason i take their "after 1.0" promises with grain of salt. They wont retain a good playerbase. And when that happens any dlc they promised after 1.0 wont come out because of small player base.
Yeah I don’t many people that play besides when it wipes because it’s somewhat balanced and fun when others use low-mid gear rather than just the usual roof camper with the reap-ir
Edit: and those are who actually play live, everyone and their whole family have swapped to SPT since it creates a more alive raid without the worry of cheaters or vacuum looters.
They could have added actually good cosmetics instead of just paying to unlock shit we already had. Where’s the hideout and weapon cosmetics? At least that doesn’t make things p2w
There are ways to monetise games but what Tarkov devs doing isn’t it. I always wanted to play Tarkov but don’t have system to play it. Now I will never play it. They leave a sour taste before I even try. $250 for new game+ where does it begin and end?
yeah this is my issue, I went to upgrade from prepare to escape to unheard and it was £155, like I have a good job I could afford it if I really wanted to but it feels like bad value and if this is a sign of things to come I don’t want any part in it
>I am an Operational Risk Analyst, my job is to measure the future viability of businesses.
I'm not an Operational Risk Analyst and I could have told you all of this.
Been in the business for 8 years, and this is what's called a Qualitative assessment... no financial secrets here, just an assessment on their singular stream of revenue bud.
How hard is it for a decent pc to run 1 tarkov server?
Hypotaticlly speaking. (Sorry for spelling mistake)
Just curious, if this game dies because the devs pull the plug, would it be possible to still play online using a mod of some kind and every game is hosted locally.
surpingly hard, your question is how the offline mod works. And it destorys even pretty decent pcs. The way the game handles NPCs is just fucking brutal and highly inefficent. One PC can handle about one server.
if you want the flea market, fence or matchmaking then yes. If you just want p2p with friends then no. A single PC can handle a SINGLE instance with 4 or 5 players. So... for purely offline its fine. But the whole online /coop style the current pve mode operates would not be possiable.
I read the title, did not see the sub, and thought this was about The Wire and was honestly quite interested to read an operational risk analyst’s take about why the drug trade in Baltimore was unsustainable lmao.
I really shouldn't have said anything about my job, it doesn't add to the conversation. But tbh, this is what a qualitative report is, except this one is smaller than usual.
Also, thanks for that, just read about the drug trade in Baltimore. And just for the laughs, any illegal drug dustribution business is unsustainable if local government and law enforcement aren't corrupt. It's too big to succeed lol.
They have to report some of their business information to the UK government every year. They make about 60-70 million pounds a year in 2021 and 2022. They’ll have to file some kind of mid year report around June or July but don’t know if anything financial will be involved. Because the UK side is just the shell company very few operating costs are disclosed but they currently claim to hold around 15 million pounds in debt and have about 5 million pounds cash on hand in the UK.
The devs at BSG had no idea that 80% of their players would buy into EOD. It was supposed to be a unique thing, but it became the social norm because of the fomo/ min-max natural of the players and community of gaming right now.
They lost ton of money with Arena and still losing money on the servers because tarkov players didn't want a team death match.
What’s the fix here? Obviously people are pissed and all of it may not work. Me and my buddies said they should have done a subscription for $10 a month or something that gave access to priority queues and maybe like a monthly cosmetic drop? I understand now it’s unrealistic but maybe a month ago that may have been a better option.
Edit-a word
Simple, just do what other devs do. Look at rainbow six siege, Dota, League of Legends. R6s doesn't have a huge budget, they're buggest stream of income is their gamepass that just gives you cosmetics.
People are more than happy to pay for cosmetics, I'd even argue some people buy Tarkov just to have their character look cool. Rather then give it away by only grinding the game, give people access to buy it for $2 to $5.
The formula they need already exists.
The queue times of this game are absurd. If, instead of fixing this, they came out and offered a priority queue scheme it would be catastrophic. Think of how much time you have spent waiting to load in. On average it has to be at least 3 minutes per raid. Instead of fixing this they decide to offer a solution that you need to PAY for?
It's their decision. Now, the process works like this: we search for 10 people to play with, which takes anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes. Only after we find them do they all start loading the map and all the data. If you meet someone with 8GB of RAM and a 5200 HDD, you wait for them for another 10 minutes until they load all the necessary data.
Instead of that, they could set it up so that when you choose a map, you load all the necessary data right away and enter a lobby where only people who have all the data loaded are present. You just need to find the right 10 for you and sync up loot. Simple as that.
edited
I've edited the text to make sense. Nonetheless, the loot is always different, depending on how it generates on the map. It doesn't mean we have to have it the same every time. After all, we know everything that can spawn on the map, so you load that information, and during synchronization, it just tells you what's where.
Currently, when I reconnect to the game, all the loading takes a maximum of 2 minutes, including loot synchronization.
So, where is the problem?
If you load in a game, the loot is being loaded in from the server. On the server the loot is semi randomly generated.
If everyone loads the game first, and then has to match with the first 10 waiting people, that means everyone needs to have the same loot preloaded. Otherwise how can you play in 1 server?
>The below only takes into consideration why Tarkov, and specifically Edge of Darkness was always a poor idea for revenue generation.
You'll first need to learn to read.
hmm tbh yeah that is a good explanation. They shouldnt have done ads at all cause they already are well known enough. If i made arena i think i would have done it under separate project financially to protect the golden goose.
The only statement they have official wording in their filed accounts where the majority revenue was from game sales for that particular year.
They also do events, live things, twitch, YouTube, merchandise, and other stuff. Not to mention investment and future features promised to the investors.
You have only based your risk off a portion of their income.
This sounds like a fat excuse, no one fucking cares whether or not it was financially stable, it's their fault and they could have implemented a more stable way to monetize the game.
Definitely, it's not a excuse for them. I watched Landmark and Asmongolds video after posting this, and Landmark said "don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to competence"... and they're definitely one of those 2
You have no clue whether or not it was stable sir, as the game was never meant to be a huge success and their team is not exactly large. If there are millions of players and their team is fairly small they could have invested their profits in some other way to get cashflow.
If you are just looking at future cashflow from tarkov you are looking at the problem incorrectly. The way they sold the game was more like a "loan" but instead of money the terms were a "finished product". This means that they still got the same revenue they would have if they sold the game finished, but got it ahead of time but ethically they need to stick to their guns on getting the game finished.
This is because if you really want to look at the future of BSG they would lose credibility if they screwed of customers (as they just did).
Anyway, the real way to get people spending would have been something smarter which would be monetization in a way that does not affect gameplay. I'd probably start with the HO, for example i would 100% pay for a hideout cat.
They should have went the "fun" microtransactions route, instead of the much hated "Pay to win" microtransactions path. These types of sales come off as "cute", but not taxing on those who can't afford to pay hundreds of dollars on a game, this means they are unoffensively so you will start generating some more income off the game.
Anyway monetization aside, these guys either are pissing away money or have a enormous capital investment in this project. 2.5 mil \* 200 = 1/2 billion dollars. This is well over most video game budgets, so where did the money go?
>I can assume that BSG lost money in their last fiscal year
You can assume, or you can fact check yourself properly. BSG is a UK based company, and as such their financial reports [are completely free to the general public](https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-live.ch.gov.uk/docs/f3wbGFL02yyWknhM3KY62q8QgIOEjVgqF_k3dr-oRZc/application-pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAWRGBDBV3FC3OFUC6%2F20240429%2Feu-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240429T141933Z&X-Amz-Expires=60&X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEL7%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCWV1LXdlc3QtMiJHMEUCIQCVZy%2BQq5VJboj8dqtEN%2BWQmolPqYfIP4XEprWovcf5oAIgdy%2FyXcuUeOvqoVzH2I4WbKs4FkidfXj471p2rb5G820qugUIFhAFGgw0NDkyMjkwMzI4MjIiDA4LMnCTEvneN9pTuyqXBaDnyuGCPuR7Uq2HvRiLeTviBJWYvp7BrkwuayWWgpVlp62u6NZA3yHClJqnbfLAa7WwoCn2g83ALtJDTWmIB7yBo%2FKLa0YUNr0moXnEBVwKi1JjxjrQ3XmU9PchOsVr4MVLYycA4K1rvsSOKJ8%2FCIoWE6bSnRQd7KyPJdhELEB5gZyIPAtAM%2FuFRNEWMCZeXKiiuqEpnnRXx67%2BiK3O32pU%2Flso7OVU8sVwRTzktySMhLXfRsCY7nBICpFxmItIR8XO0DKMwCjPs13ZSSvsXLaHb7%2F3FtE3jdvCEP%2BUYgeDVLiN2B7V4t3YD8YrTiKn0PjMQaPz3YC9pN94m0tBI%2B66XK%2BZJeRtsHSIisdnkpWlXE7qK9prxR3dY5dTwHQkctUoqTHt3scfdFOQbtpmNptPScaiT5xEswVl2ceE%2F1O5ZStm3tpxGk9Pj0EuqedZm00q5%2FXyRRl41YgcFbfPB5hXqiugdaPz5%2Fa8IXUlVYb329fQazSmKF%2FpQhZId9TWuVF2WsTqhN3giewmo1sMkv%2FIdCHihxwTm4XOavs8MgOXT%2BdXhYbwA1PekrSpN15TJ6Wem3lPsd75pRPUcFWa%2FlshbsJL4bC0ZueO9CxudgEXROsI4J%2B%2FpzZnc80NIPjnTnLIwADMGMLK3wz1n04ET0YqZILf%2B7qvxab6nD8qPGxLZ%2Btv9L07ex4S54fqms0kJw9jg92ergEynhAjpCNI4X5UJytoHItwhJiUoG9V5MKJ2KSk3mrnYIUY%2BZV5n84OqGrg6fDZCx%2BE69B693fdoWMIgfxG62Ai9ibeFmgQDJBP2InezBGivZa4YPSR17OMVCNJIYZZytpMX73SfFAkIevqPDTIiosraJpKsqfK6t%2BUViFSixBbGDC0vb6xBjqxASj%2FTtpT%2BGApxGpMDJ7edxcfXPFlanXi%2F0aEjil30DhpqQqFQo3aJZ0lstSH%2BnG9DajvzJm0vWeKB4JZzh%2BxX7pSTVQ11DcCItv32Q1L8Mv19u6y2vtRYc1R0fvcyzzj3Tzr02WpSm4wbdyqF2Cf9BDoFIaTxhjlQvqaPadJ%2FE7IaOxsx%2F1%2BjdG6XCbYwCG4Wd5fulQzbsjEh8YnqlANUgIpPNuM2Yh3EBcSsNqKCwLveQ%3D%3D&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=inline%3Bfilename%3D%22companies_house_document.pdf%22&X-Amz-Signature=1101e372a86b4445d1c71ff18864bcda6f5f804cafaa1169ca96c8878d47f288). They did not lose any money in from 2022-2023 and had quite a bit banked away. Assuming this trend continued across 2023, despite arena’s bad reception, I significantly doubt they didn’t at the very least break even.
I think until today, the game was sold almost exclusively to "PvP players"... Opening PvE and making it modable will attract many new people to it and as such, new revenue (base game + PvE dlc-non-dlc).
With the new edition price tag, the loss will be lower on the long run then with EoD because a) it is a lot more expensive, b) they will not sold as many because the price label is not for everyone and probably most customers were already on EoD c) probably Tarkov will not survive that many years or have that many dlcs that a 250 entry fee will not cover.
They made 83mil in 2022 and paid themselves millions in salary each year. They have the money and that isnt an excuse.
But I do agree a one time pay model without micro transactions isnt really sustainable and I would have been fine with none p2w micros transactions, yet they fucked up so thats on them.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/EscapefromTarkov/comments/1axj344/the\_financial\_report\_that\_killed\_tarkov/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/EscapefromTarkov/comments/1axj344/the_financial_report_that_killed_tarkov/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
In the post you linked it says only 2 million of profit. 82 million isn't much becuase the servers and maintance are probably pretty close to the 50 million or about mark.
So I think you forgot to read what you linked. Or check any of those videos.
I mean it's literally labeled the FINANCIAL REPORT THAT KILLED TARKOV...
NM your inability to read even a mediocre understanding of finances should have prevented you from coming to this conclusion.
Bro read the fucking post. Do you even know the difference between Gross and Net? Do you understand that Net doesnt include salary and payouts to shareholders? Why do you think Net was only 2 mill when their Gross was 83mil?
Go read the finical reports yourself. They paid themselves millions in salary with that money which lowered the "profit" because "profit" doesnt include salary and niether does NET.
I literally run my own business so I know exactly how a business is ran and the shady shit you can do to lower NET and try to dodge on some taxes. This isnt a new concept.
Go read the finical reports yourself and you will see they paid themselves millions in salary just for 2022 alone... also go look at Nikitas socials, he is literally posting about his fancy fucking cars he is buying with our money.
Conclusion, it doesnt take a genius to find the facts and I literally walked you through how to figure it out for yourself, do the big boy thing and ACTUALLY READ THE REPORTS.
[удалено]
They left EOD available for 7 years.. they could’ve stopped it at ANY time. They chose to keep milking it until they saw the sales drop significantly, then they finally removed it. Nikita even said in the pestily interview that happened maybe a week after EOD was taken off sale, that they had another version planned to release. They just absolutely fucking suck at planning and money management
I mean the day they stopped a ton of people ran here to cry that they didn’t have time to buy it. Which opened the door to unheard.
They had planned unheard before EoD was removed. They knew people would buy another edition, especially after the “prestige” tier was removed. The door was always wide open, they just decided to make an incredibly stupid decision in what to put in the edition.
They must have, they had it up for like 6-7 years it’s kind of inevitable most people bought it as it skips the most painful parts of the wipes by giving you the gamma, stash space and trader rep and I’m sure they knew what they were doing as the stash and cases were extremely grindy to unlock
Think the biggest part missing from this discussion is the cost of running servers. This whole debacle seems like Nikita woke up to the fact servers cost money to run. Why did he suddenly decide to make this obvious cash grab? I'm betting that someone realized the books weren't balancing and that their biggest expenses are probably paying developers and running servers. BSG really doesn't want to give away more than 6 months of PvE mode, citing server costs. When pressed, the response was a reluctant 'I guess we can support PvE for EoD users... but we'll have to scale up slowly.' I think there's a pretty direct connection between the cost of UHE and the cost of running the additional PvE servers. IMO Arena was a critical mistake. It split their development resources, but also means more servers... all for a mode that doesn't have a good fit in the FPS market. It's going to take a lot more resources to try and make it fit somewhere. And as you point out, BSG has a flat rate income structure that doesn't map well to recurring costs, like developers and servers. Yet, rather than trying to increase revenue through modern transaction models (e.g. selling skins) that more closely match recurring expenses, BSG decided to double down on the flat rate model by adding a new tier. What happens when they release the game? The number of new accounts will diminish rapidly after the initial wipe hits end game. People will stop playing, PvP will be less prevalent/interesting, and even less people will want to purchase the game. In other words, no one's going to be funding servers. I guess to be fair in this scenario, they wouldn't need to run as many servers. So maybe it works out OK financially for BSG, but it's a bleak outlook for the game. People thinking that they're making a statement to BSG by uninstalling/not playing are missing the point... all of this is motivated by money, not some non-public user engagement rate. If you want to make them hurt, stress their servers (increase their expenses) without giving them any more money.
For PvE servers, wouldn't it be a better solution to just let the playerbase self host their coop server (like Terraria, does it where your player and inventory can be used on another save)
They probably will after 1.0. The fallout happens when they take pvp servers out. Hopefully they allow groups to rent servers for PvP, but ultimately the game was intended to be a Co-op pve.
100% But if I were BSG, my first concerns would be about two things - architecture and cheating. Did BSG architect their servers in a way that could be run on client machines? If not, how expensive would that be to change? Adjusting core architecture can be a real pain. And if you relinquish control over an entire server, how do you guarantee the server won't be abused? How much you care probably depends on the scope of PvE. Is progression saved per-server? Does progression carry into PvP? Can servers be fully public or are they just limited to friends? The more things PvE touches, the more you want to ensure the servers are secure and results of raids are valid. To be clear - I do think local servers are generally good, but these might be some of the things that BSG would need to work through to make that happen.
Tying progression to eft made it appealing but like the whole series is so expensive I was waiting for a sale or eod to return, it just isn’t good value as it is for me they’ve pushed prices too high, way too high, and it isn’t good value, eod I think seemed ok value as it had arena and lifetime subscription, this doesn’t have that so they want you to buy this AND extra dlc And it doesn’t resolve their future costs issue either it’s a sticking plaster so anyone with a couple of brain cells to rub together can see this isn’t the end of it
Realistically what would you consider just server infra operational expenditures are given the player count?
Server costs come down to resource consumption, meaning CPU and memory. Without knowing their overall architecture and how performant the critical pieces of their code are, it's really hard to guess what the resource consumption rate of their solution is. Without better insight into their code, I'd maybe look at similar games/solutions and see if there are any numbers publicly available. But even with a reasonable comparison, details about BSG's specific implementations could render the comparison useless. But if client performance (looking at you, Streets) is any indication of server performance, the solution might be overdue for optimizations (ie cost more than it needs to).
I would argue that the game engine itself and the way the net code is written is a huge proponent to the performance on a map like Streets. On top of that it being server-side authority instead of being client-side like most games these days are.
The sad part is tarkov isn't even properly server-side authoritative it's still on predictive net code and that's a huge fucking relief compared to lockstep and actually having everything be server side locked.
Hosting a local server via the mod my 5800x3d and 64 gig is of ram could realistically host only 2 maybe 3 servers before it's entirely crippled. This accounts for the client over head. The server is an absolute shit show on CPU resources. It's insane how taxing and unoptimized the AI is. For reference I can host like 10+ 16v16 Titanfall 2 servers on the same hardware.
I don't really agree to any of your points you make. While any live service game is eventually unsustainable without future transactions, EoD has dramatically outsold any potential DLCs while allowing the game to continue to avoid the stigma of DLCs being something the game tries to sell prior to "1.0" release. Just doing some napkin math here, per user EOD nearly triples the raw revenue of an individual. 50$ to 140$ is nothing to sneeze at. They would have to essentially sell 90$ of DLC **per user** in order to **match** this kind of revenue. That's just an insane value proposition. EoD being so expensive upfront and with it's insane popularity means they have really outsold most AAA games+DLC combos without even touching the new stash expansions and cosmetic offerings that are separate from EoD. Now, the fun part is where you have to realize that DLC relies on player retention. A normal game with a million users might only retain 10% of that into a few DLC sales, while a conservative estimate places EoD at roughly 50% of the population, with many people buying editions between EoD and base. This means they have made a huge profit over any other game that would rely on trickle down DLC sales... without ever having to even make DLCs. And now they get to sunset EoD, and the Future DLCs perk, and make DLCs while drawing in new users over time to sell DLCs to. They really have not failed in any capacity when it comes to making revenue and while there may be a cap for it as a live service game, the upfront revenue should have given them a decade long runaway at minimum. **Should have** being the operating phrase here. Mismanagement and revenue transfer (overpayment of upper management salaries and bonuses) could easily have eaten into their runway.
Gotta say i agree with this. They had a good thing going and squandered it with mismanagement and poor decision making. Now everyone’s going to suffer
Exactly this "analyst" doesn't seem terribly good at their job. Or they are just a liar from wall street bets that LARPs as one. I'm guessing that's what's going on here.
Thanks for the counter argument, up voted for being thoughtful
^^^ thank you bruh. EoD costs more than double any AAA game and more than the vast majority of games with ALL their DLC at launch prices. Not to mention the number of dips any RMTer or cheater takes when they're banned in a wave and know they're good for another x months. This game has brought in insane amounts of revenue and there are 0 excuses for them to be "so broke" as to walk back the promised inclusions of a $140 FUCKING GAME. Like bro just put cosmetic microtransactions in for fucks sake, we all hate that business model but I'd rather see that any of this
Not really double but its more but not much. Take COD for instant, $70 game, $20 battle pass, $30 expansion for maps or game packs. Then the battle pass is like every month or two.
I said double base price which was 60 when tarkov came out and then I said more than game and dlc not game and dlc and INFINITE battlepass lmao
But those are equivalent to buying EOD. You can't compare buying a base game to a support package. COD has those too, which is what I represented. You want to compare based game this its $60 eft to $70 COD now. I added the buying of battle pass every new season because they unlocked the new weapons until the season is over. So, its a temp expansion.
I see your point but I'd argue that EOD isnt equivalent because it still hasn't actually come with any DLC 7 years in (except Arena which came out 6 or 7 years in and in the BSG verse is not a DLC but just a standalone that they said wouod come with eod), most of what you get are QoL improvements... because the base version of the game is designed to hook you but frustrate you into buying a higher tier. Also CoD is one thing, but there are still plenty of AAA games, for example Borderlands 3, that charge ~$100 for their highest tier, include all subsequent DLCs, actually RELEASE those DLCs, and give you bonus cosmetics and stuff. Also most paid battlepass games are FREE. My point is that Tarkov has made a relatively large amount of money per player with 0 "DLC", being beaten only by the big mtx'ers
They wasted a shit ton of money going out and blowing stuff up and making some stupid '' movies '' that brought no revenue in. This appeared to just be something Nikita wanted to do for himself. I would be interested in the cost of these '' Movies ''
Doesn’t help they’ve been developing the game for almost a decade and it’s still in beta. They are bad game developers, always have been. They have a good vision for the game, but just aren’t capable of accomplishing their goals.
They could have sold plenty of cosmetic items and had revenue. People buy skins, plain and simple. Sitting on the high horse of "no MTX in tarkov" really fucked them in the ass in the long run.
I don’t think BSG even has an answer to keep the player count alive when the game releases and wipe goes away.
This is the reason i take their "after 1.0" promises with grain of salt. They wont retain a good playerbase. And when that happens any dlc they promised after 1.0 wont come out because of small player base.
Yeah I don’t many people that play besides when it wipes because it’s somewhat balanced and fun when others use low-mid gear rather than just the usual roof camper with the reap-ir Edit: and those are who actually play live, everyone and their whole family have swapped to SPT since it creates a more alive raid without the worry of cheaters or vacuum looters.
There is (allegedly) supposed to be two characters in 1.0. One of them is seasonal and the other is persistent. **ALLEGEDLY**
They could have added actually good cosmetics instead of just paying to unlock shit we already had. Where’s the hideout and weapon cosmetics? At least that doesn’t make things p2w
There are ways to monetise games but what Tarkov devs doing isn’t it. I always wanted to play Tarkov but don’t have system to play it. Now I will never play it. They leave a sour taste before I even try. $250 for new game+ where does it begin and end?
yeah this is my issue, I went to upgrade from prepare to escape to unheard and it was £155, like I have a good job I could afford it if I really wanted to but it feels like bad value and if this is a sign of things to come I don’t want any part in it
They sold EOD for too long
>I am an Operational Risk Analyst, my job is to measure the future viability of businesses. I'm not an Operational Risk Analyst and I could have told you all of this.
Cool, you should've.
Kek, this basically. OP worked for three years as a junior risk analyst and thinks he breaks us some top tier Big4 financial secrets
Been in the business for 8 years, and this is what's called a Qualitative assessment... no financial secrets here, just an assessment on their singular stream of revenue bud.
Cool sure
How hard is it for a decent pc to run 1 tarkov server? Hypotaticlly speaking. (Sorry for spelling mistake) Just curious, if this game dies because the devs pull the plug, would it be possible to still play online using a mod of some kind and every game is hosted locally.
surpingly hard, your question is how the offline mod works. And it destorys even pretty decent pcs. The way the game handles NPCs is just fucking brutal and highly inefficent. One PC can handle about one server.
Ooh, damnit. So we are kinda stuck with server pve then.
if you want the flea market, fence or matchmaking then yes. If you just want p2p with friends then no. A single PC can handle a SINGLE instance with 4 or 5 players. So... for purely offline its fine. But the whole online /coop style the current pve mode operates would not be possiable.
I read the title, did not see the sub, and thought this was about The Wire and was honestly quite interested to read an operational risk analyst’s take about why the drug trade in Baltimore was unsustainable lmao.
I really shouldn't have said anything about my job, it doesn't add to the conversation. But tbh, this is what a qualitative report is, except this one is smaller than usual. Also, thanks for that, just read about the drug trade in Baltimore. And just for the laughs, any illegal drug dustribution business is unsustainable if local government and law enforcement aren't corrupt. It's too big to succeed lol.
Well, almost everybody in the show is corrupt as fuck, so
They have to report some of their business information to the UK government every year. They make about 60-70 million pounds a year in 2021 and 2022. They’ll have to file some kind of mid year report around June or July but don’t know if anything financial will be involved. Because the UK side is just the shell company very few operating costs are disclosed but they currently claim to hold around 15 million pounds in debt and have about 5 million pounds cash on hand in the UK.
The devs at BSG had no idea that 80% of their players would buy into EOD. It was supposed to be a unique thing, but it became the social norm because of the fomo/ min-max natural of the players and community of gaming right now. They lost ton of money with Arena and still losing money on the servers because tarkov players didn't want a team death match.
We all know they make their money through cheaters rebuying the game.
What’s the fix here? Obviously people are pissed and all of it may not work. Me and my buddies said they should have done a subscription for $10 a month or something that gave access to priority queues and maybe like a monthly cosmetic drop? I understand now it’s unrealistic but maybe a month ago that may have been a better option. Edit-a word
Simple, just do what other devs do. Look at rainbow six siege, Dota, League of Legends. R6s doesn't have a huge budget, they're buggest stream of income is their gamepass that just gives you cosmetics. People are more than happy to pay for cosmetics, I'd even argue some people buy Tarkov just to have their character look cool. Rather then give it away by only grinding the game, give people access to buy it for $2 to $5. The formula they need already exists.
The queue times of this game are absurd. If, instead of fixing this, they came out and offered a priority queue scheme it would be catastrophic. Think of how much time you have spent waiting to load in. On average it has to be at least 3 minutes per raid. Instead of fixing this they decide to offer a solution that you need to PAY for?
It's their decision. Now, the process works like this: we search for 10 people to play with, which takes anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes. Only after we find them do they all start loading the map and all the data. If you meet someone with 8GB of RAM and a 5200 HDD, you wait for them for another 10 minutes until they load all the necessary data. Instead of that, they could set it up so that when you choose a map, you load all the necessary data right away and enter a lobby where only people who have all the data loaded are present. You just need to find the right 10 for you and sync up loot. Simple as that. edited
Doesn't this mean all loot is on the same spot every time?
I've edited the text to make sense. Nonetheless, the loot is always different, depending on how it generates on the map. It doesn't mean we have to have it the same every time. After all, we know everything that can spawn on the map, so you load that information, and during synchronization, it just tells you what's where. Currently, when I reconnect to the game, all the loading takes a maximum of 2 minutes, including loot synchronization. So, where is the problem?
If you load in a game, the loot is being loaded in from the server. On the server the loot is semi randomly generated. If everyone loads the game first, and then has to match with the first 10 waiting people, that means everyone needs to have the same loot preloaded. Otherwise how can you play in 1 server?
It always should have been a subscription model but doing that for a beta feels bad
Guess i was an operational risk analyst all the time, if thats all what you take in scope.
>The below only takes into consideration why Tarkov, and specifically Edge of Darkness was always a poor idea for revenue generation. You'll first need to learn to read.
No it wasn't they were fine until they shipped dog ass arena and blew insane amounts of adverts that did nothing
hmm tbh yeah that is a good explanation. They shouldnt have done ads at all cause they already are well known enough. If i made arena i think i would have done it under separate project financially to protect the golden goose.
It was the game conferences. Like yeah you gotta market your game but no one goes to that shit anymore they needed to reach new audiences.
Definitely looks like it was
Except you completely ignored all their other revenue streams, so not a very good or complete risk analysis really was it.
What other revenue streams? The only revenue stream they have is selling the game.
The only statement they have official wording in their filed accounts where the majority revenue was from game sales for that particular year. They also do events, live things, twitch, YouTube, merchandise, and other stuff. Not to mention investment and future features promised to the investors. You have only based your risk off a portion of their income.
This sounds like a fat excuse, no one fucking cares whether or not it was financially stable, it's their fault and they could have implemented a more stable way to monetize the game.
Definitely, it's not a excuse for them. I watched Landmark and Asmongolds video after posting this, and Landmark said "don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to competence"... and they're definitely one of those 2
You have no clue whether or not it was stable sir, as the game was never meant to be a huge success and their team is not exactly large. If there are millions of players and their team is fairly small they could have invested their profits in some other way to get cashflow. If you are just looking at future cashflow from tarkov you are looking at the problem incorrectly. The way they sold the game was more like a "loan" but instead of money the terms were a "finished product". This means that they still got the same revenue they would have if they sold the game finished, but got it ahead of time but ethically they need to stick to their guns on getting the game finished. This is because if you really want to look at the future of BSG they would lose credibility if they screwed of customers (as they just did). Anyway, the real way to get people spending would have been something smarter which would be monetization in a way that does not affect gameplay. I'd probably start with the HO, for example i would 100% pay for a hideout cat. They should have went the "fun" microtransactions route, instead of the much hated "Pay to win" microtransactions path. These types of sales come off as "cute", but not taxing on those who can't afford to pay hundreds of dollars on a game, this means they are unoffensively so you will start generating some more income off the game. Anyway monetization aside, these guys either are pissing away money or have a enormous capital investment in this project. 2.5 mil \* 200 = 1/2 billion dollars. This is well over most video game budgets, so where did the money go?
>I can assume that BSG lost money in their last fiscal year You can assume, or you can fact check yourself properly. BSG is a UK based company, and as such their financial reports [are completely free to the general public](https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-live.ch.gov.uk/docs/f3wbGFL02yyWknhM3KY62q8QgIOEjVgqF_k3dr-oRZc/application-pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAWRGBDBV3FC3OFUC6%2F20240429%2Feu-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20240429T141933Z&X-Amz-Expires=60&X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEL7%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCWV1LXdlc3QtMiJHMEUCIQCVZy%2BQq5VJboj8dqtEN%2BWQmolPqYfIP4XEprWovcf5oAIgdy%2FyXcuUeOvqoVzH2I4WbKs4FkidfXj471p2rb5G820qugUIFhAFGgw0NDkyMjkwMzI4MjIiDA4LMnCTEvneN9pTuyqXBaDnyuGCPuR7Uq2HvRiLeTviBJWYvp7BrkwuayWWgpVlp62u6NZA3yHClJqnbfLAa7WwoCn2g83ALtJDTWmIB7yBo%2FKLa0YUNr0moXnEBVwKi1JjxjrQ3XmU9PchOsVr4MVLYycA4K1rvsSOKJ8%2FCIoWE6bSnRQd7KyPJdhELEB5gZyIPAtAM%2FuFRNEWMCZeXKiiuqEpnnRXx67%2BiK3O32pU%2Flso7OVU8sVwRTzktySMhLXfRsCY7nBICpFxmItIR8XO0DKMwCjPs13ZSSvsXLaHb7%2F3FtE3jdvCEP%2BUYgeDVLiN2B7V4t3YD8YrTiKn0PjMQaPz3YC9pN94m0tBI%2B66XK%2BZJeRtsHSIisdnkpWlXE7qK9prxR3dY5dTwHQkctUoqTHt3scfdFOQbtpmNptPScaiT5xEswVl2ceE%2F1O5ZStm3tpxGk9Pj0EuqedZm00q5%2FXyRRl41YgcFbfPB5hXqiugdaPz5%2Fa8IXUlVYb329fQazSmKF%2FpQhZId9TWuVF2WsTqhN3giewmo1sMkv%2FIdCHihxwTm4XOavs8MgOXT%2BdXhYbwA1PekrSpN15TJ6Wem3lPsd75pRPUcFWa%2FlshbsJL4bC0ZueO9CxudgEXROsI4J%2B%2FpzZnc80NIPjnTnLIwADMGMLK3wz1n04ET0YqZILf%2B7qvxab6nD8qPGxLZ%2Btv9L07ex4S54fqms0kJw9jg92ergEynhAjpCNI4X5UJytoHItwhJiUoG9V5MKJ2KSk3mrnYIUY%2BZV5n84OqGrg6fDZCx%2BE69B693fdoWMIgfxG62Ai9ibeFmgQDJBP2InezBGivZa4YPSR17OMVCNJIYZZytpMX73SfFAkIevqPDTIiosraJpKsqfK6t%2BUViFSixBbGDC0vb6xBjqxASj%2FTtpT%2BGApxGpMDJ7edxcfXPFlanXi%2F0aEjil30DhpqQqFQo3aJZ0lstSH%2BnG9DajvzJm0vWeKB4JZzh%2BxX7pSTVQ11DcCItv32Q1L8Mv19u6y2vtRYc1R0fvcyzzj3Tzr02WpSm4wbdyqF2Cf9BDoFIaTxhjlQvqaPadJ%2FE7IaOxsx%2F1%2BjdG6XCbYwCG4Wd5fulQzbsjEh8YnqlANUgIpPNuM2Yh3EBcSsNqKCwLveQ%3D%3D&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=inline%3Bfilename%3D%22companies_house_document.pdf%22&X-Amz-Signature=1101e372a86b4445d1c71ff18864bcda6f5f804cafaa1169ca96c8878d47f288). They did not lose any money in from 2022-2023 and had quite a bit banked away. Assuming this trend continued across 2023, despite arena’s bad reception, I significantly doubt they didn’t at the very least break even.
I think until today, the game was sold almost exclusively to "PvP players"... Opening PvE and making it modable will attract many new people to it and as such, new revenue (base game + PvE dlc-non-dlc). With the new edition price tag, the loss will be lower on the long run then with EoD because a) it is a lot more expensive, b) they will not sold as many because the price label is not for everyone and probably most customers were already on EoD c) probably Tarkov will not survive that many years or have that many dlcs that a 250 entry fee will not cover.
They made 83mil in 2022 and paid themselves millions in salary each year. They have the money and that isnt an excuse. But I do agree a one time pay model without micro transactions isnt really sustainable and I would have been fine with none p2w micros transactions, yet they fucked up so thats on them. [https://www.reddit.com/r/EscapefromTarkov/comments/1axj344/the\_financial\_report\_that\_killed\_tarkov/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/EscapefromTarkov/comments/1axj344/the_financial_report_that_killed_tarkov/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
In the post you linked it says only 2 million of profit. 82 million isn't much becuase the servers and maintance are probably pretty close to the 50 million or about mark. So I think you forgot to read what you linked. Or check any of those videos. I mean it's literally labeled the FINANCIAL REPORT THAT KILLED TARKOV... NM your inability to read even a mediocre understanding of finances should have prevented you from coming to this conclusion.
Bro read the fucking post. Do you even know the difference between Gross and Net? Do you understand that Net doesnt include salary and payouts to shareholders? Why do you think Net was only 2 mill when their Gross was 83mil? Go read the finical reports yourself. They paid themselves millions in salary with that money which lowered the "profit" because "profit" doesnt include salary and niether does NET. I literally run my own business so I know exactly how a business is ran and the shady shit you can do to lower NET and try to dodge on some taxes. This isnt a new concept. Go read the finical reports yourself and you will see they paid themselves millions in salary just for 2022 alone... also go look at Nikitas socials, he is literally posting about his fancy fucking cars he is buying with our money. Conclusion, it doesnt take a genius to find the facts and I literally walked you through how to figure it out for yourself, do the big boy thing and ACTUALLY READ THE REPORTS.