Things I don't understand. If the game was made right, upkeep and server cost should be near zero. Who is needing to be paid, where it is cheaper to shut down a game then simply leave it running?
I have always wondered why they rush so much. I've run private servers for games that would certainly handle 25 users on a bargain-basement VM. I've got some running now that really only see 2 or 3 people on a $30 a year VM. You could scale that to handle 25 users easily for $10 a month. I really don't do any maintenance, honestly haven't even played on in a while. I mean what are they going to do, hack it? It might get your game more players from the attention--let them.
I've done similar. We ran a 15-player game server off some old hardware I gave to a guy to literally put in his basement, and a couple of us just VNC'd in to it whenever something needed to be done. Ran a couple of concurrent games, not even bothering with VNs VMs or anything.
It was F2P. That means it's designed primarily as a vehicle for selling micro-transactions, not as a game experience. Which means for it to "work as intended" they need artists and community/other marketers to keep churning out content and getting people to buy it. If the projections say there aren't enough whales left, it collapses under its own weight.
If they let it keep running at zero revenue, the initial spending on the game is gone, but still considered part of the cost of an ongoing product. If they shut it down and totally shitcan it, they can call the development expenditures a "loss" and write down their taxes.
Things I don't understand. If the game was made right, upkeep and server cost should be near zero. Who is needing to be paid, where it is cheaper to shut down a game then simply leave it running?
I have always wondered why they rush so much. I've run private servers for games that would certainly handle 25 users on a bargain-basement VM. I've got some running now that really only see 2 or 3 people on a $30 a year VM. You could scale that to handle 25 users easily for $10 a month. I really don't do any maintenance, honestly haven't even played on in a while. I mean what are they going to do, hack it? It might get your game more players from the attention--let them.
I've done similar. We ran a 15-player game server off some old hardware I gave to a guy to literally put in his basement, and a couple of us just VNC'd in to it whenever something needed to be done. Ran a couple of concurrent games, not even bothering with
VNsVMs or anything.It was F2P. That means it's designed primarily as a vehicle for selling micro-transactions, not as a game experience. Which means for it to "work as intended" they need artists and community/other marketers to keep churning out content and getting people to buy it. If the projections say there aren't enough whales left, it collapses under its own weight.
If they let it keep running at zero revenue, the initial spending on the game is gone, but still considered part of the cost of an ongoing product. If they shut it down and totally shitcan it, they can call the development expenditures a "loss" and write down their taxes.