After receiving a tip/inquiry from a reader, MMORPG reached out to Trion Worlds regarding the ongoing launch crash with the latest build (1709) of the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. Trion’s Steven Hopper responded:
We are still in active discussions with Bluehole Ginno to resolve the Windows issue, but there’s unfortunately not be much I can say at this point. Talks regarding support for the game are ongoing, and we’re hoping to have more information for Devilian players soon. We’ll be sure to let you know when we can.
This carefully crafted PR/corporate legal response (which is not much different than what Victoria Voss wrote in response to my open letter) and the wording (active discussion regarding a fix) is a sign that Bluehole is no longer fully committed to their business relationship/publishing agreement with Trion Worlds.
The situation is similar with the response about the future support of the game. As I mentioned before, Trion doesn’t seem to have an issue with continuing to publish the game even though the CCU’s have fallen off into an abyss (else they could have initiated the process of terminating the publishing rights from their side). Having to sunset this would come across as a black eye for Trion (possible lack of due diligence given the timing of the events that began to happen in South Korea during the summer of 2015).
On the flipside, some folks may consider a Darwinian approach might be better in terms of (Trion) letting go of a loser. The problem in this case is that Trion itself didn’t handle the game very well early on. Some of their earlier decisions and deflection/slow response directly contributed to the loss of players. Rather than me rehashing everything, one can simply peruse their official forums and review feedback from December 2015 until the time that they finally merged the servers and rolled out the Alvir’s Legacy update. Yes, there is some of the usual vitriol but its relative easily to also see the amount of constructive feedback.
Digressing, Bluehole (more so after renaming Bluehole Ginno to PUBG Corp) on the otherhand has likely already telegraphed they would like to move on BUT haven’t pulled the trigger probably due to some legal binding aspects written into the publishing agreement (which probably is no shorter than 5 years IMHO).
I presume there are provisions in the contract which probably centers around forfeiting portions of their revenue sharing agreement in the event of an early termination. The biggest current sticking point that I can discern is a dispute regarding Bluehole’s responsibility as the developer when it comes to resolving technical issues in good faith (the Windows 10 problem being one of them since it is build specific). Given that both parties are still in this publishing agreement, there is no reason there should be active discussions to resolve the Windows 10 issue. Trion reports it and Bluehole should fix it.
As for the content angle, I have mentioned before that Bluehole Ginno for the most part has delivered the entire game as of the Fallen Castle Update sans the Unique gear tier. The actual content is not exactly the same nor in the same ordering as the original Korean version. And they did provide many more improvements and refinements over the original (so that part is probably not an issue for Trion) so I do believe Bluehole Ginno upheld that part.
Trion would have to cough up money for actual newly designed content and I believe that is a no go. They could also exercise the option to negotiate the rights to develop that content on their own BUT I believe that is not going to be an inexpensive option. If the game had a healthy player population where the revenue generated was stable, it might have been an option. As things currently stand, Trion’s ability to monetize this game has collapsed in the last month with a player base that has mostly abandoned the game (where there is very little remaining goodwill from those who have moved on).
Acquiring the rights to it is also a no go given the amount of TERA related IP in the game (graphical assets plus code for game systems that were derived from ones used in TERA and adapted for Devilian); it would also be even more expensive with no way for Trion to fully monetize it given the state of the player base.
The best case scenario I can imagine is that Trion will be able to maintain the rights to publish the game for the life of the publishing agreement if operationally speaking, it does not fall into the red. I really don’t know how sustainable that will be given that it will be known there won’t be any new content. That part makes it a hard pill to swallow from the player facing end. It also doesn’t help when the entire reward structure is screwed up in-game past Bloodstained tokens (or the fact that Patron Red-eye rewards for soul tokens are really outdated).
Shortly after the Fallen Castle update, I was planning to propose to Trion that they begin offering soul tokens as event rewards for the ones that cannot be earned in-game via quest rewards (since nothing was updated to take into post-Bloodstained Legacy patch nor were dailies added for Dimensional Fortress (Normal and Heroic), Forbidden Sanctuary, and Fallen Castle. So that would’ve meant Morbid, Capricious, Hellspawn, and Chimera. At this juncture, it doesn’t matter anymore.
This week shows an even further precipitous drop in player numbers (gear score ranks, 3v3 ranks, Abyssal Tower ranks). The following was last nights Stormfront Wars and I accounted for 6 of the counted participants (the number does not decrement when you leave) in channel 2 when I ran some of my alts through the Devil Souls quest.
None of the recent weekend events has helped to change the tide. The crash on launch issue with Windows 10 build 1709 adds to it since it is preventing some (who don’t have an easy way to go back and/or don’t have the technical expertise to find a way to rollback) from getting into the game. Thus even the normal flow of new players who try games out for the first few levels has been impacted for the last 2 months.
I’m pretty much telling people now that if they have a soft spot for the game, to play it (and to enjoy what exists) while they can because the future of this game is really teetering on the brink.
UPDATE: Also covered by MassivelyOP.
