I posted this open letter last week in order to get Trion Worlds to address this titles near term future in light of the recent restructuring changes that have occurred at Bluehole. Prior attempts by others to get an actual response by the pertinent people in charge have been futile because things need to phrased a certain way. Even though I will always have a soft and nostalgic spot for this game, I have also moved on where I no longer invest much time in it. I was asked by others if I could make some kind of statement on the forum since the ones who do play don’t want to see the game die.
Victoria “Firecait” Voss did finally respond but could not offer any details at this time.
Hi Murasama,
I wish I had a solid response for you at this time. While we’re continuing to have conversations with Bluehole Ginno, everything is in the discussion phase and not yet finalized. Once we have details, we’ll be sure to share them with you.
~ Firecait
Some final details regarding this short response…
With most publishing contracts, both parties can always exercise the right to terminate the agreement depending on business conditions not being met. Trion could have exercised that option months ago if they wanted to (it looks better for them to keep it online though since shuttering a game that is only coming up on its 2nd year will look like a black eye). The fact that Victoria mentioned “it is still in discussion” says that Trion has no problems keeping the game going despite decreasing CCU’s and low player retention rates. Bluehole (more so after this recent restructuring), thinks otherwise.
The way Bluehole tends to run things is pretty much sink or swim. They acquire companies, allow them to run their operations separately, and if they perform well, have resources shifted their way. Devilian in general has been a huge sink for them in terms of ROI and Ginno’s CEO used up his last card with the failure of Devilian Mobile (and no one showing interest in licensing the Devilian IP).
One thing I cannot do is source an actual human source (in Korea) that has far more details than what is reported on the Korean newswire (which itself, is not the easiest to get on Bluehole since they are a privately held company). Basically, Bluehole is trying to determine what to do with what was formerly known as Bluehole Ginno’s remaining projects. The sole remaining project now that Devilian Mobile is being shut down, is specifically Trion Worlds Devilian. The title still generates non-material revenue so they need to deal with that on the Bluehole side.
Business wise for Bluehole however, it would be easier to just terminate the publishing contract since they can completely wind down anything legal/financial saving them more expenses than what little revenues are coming in from their sharing agreement with Trion. They don’t have any interest in putting design and development resources into this title at this time due to other projects that are priority. If Trion is willing to put money into it, that would be a different story. Trion however knows the reality of making that kind of money from this game to cover the costs for the design, production, and development of new content.
So while updated content is the easiest thing for players to offer up as a suggestion, that is a catch-22 given the current state of the game as well as the restructuring that has occurred. To be more upfront, it is useless to bring that up now. Those who want to see this title to remain online for at least the foreseeable future, should be providing Trion some ammo as to what it is they enjoy about the game. That hasn’t been happening though. So when the community comes across as moribund where she can’t even point to their own forums to show that players have any interest right now, it is just going to cement the perception as far as Bluehole is concerned (because if I were in the shoes of the decision maker, I would come to that exact same conclusion).
Trion has plenty of blame to share with the way they didn’t deal with feedback early on (when that drives players away, that drives revenues away). This community shares blame by not providing well constructed and often times vitriolic feedback in the past (or had some trolls that derailed topics like this which had been posted before, as being made up to drive players away from the game). But that is all water under the bridge at this point. I gave whatever feedback I needed to make over the course of 2 years including the things that I enjoyed about the franchise as well as problems that needed to be fixed. I’m now done (the only thing that will change that if there is a solid commitment by Bluehole to go beyond maintaining the game).
It’s now up to the remaining small community that continues to play to at least show some modicum of interest (speak now, or forever hold your piece). The fact that very few have spoken up in that thread does not bode well at all.
UPDATE: shortly after Firecait made this reply, she was no longer employed with Trion (she was employed at Roblox starting in early November).
