Deep Thanks To The Employees Of There

There is so much to talk about today that I don't even know where to start. If you were under a rock yesterday, There did a press release essentially admitting that the consumer game side of There was not profitable and the future was uncertain. Here is the link. I think I have enough topics to blab until the end of May. Hee hee. Here we go

Deep Thanks To The Employees Of There
I am tired of seeing people go off on There Inc and it's employees. There is not a bad guy. One sentence stood out for me in that press release.

Michael Wilson writes:
All of us at There have poured our heart, soul, and in many cases, significant financial investment into There these last few years.

I remember that half the capital raised for There was from employees. I'm sure many lost their life savings. I don't think we need to cry about $50 or $100 when some of these people lost everything. Can you imagine working on a project for three years, pouring your life into it, and having it meet with failure. It has to be completely horrible. I want to thank the staff of There for trying their best, and for putting out such a creative project that we all really enjoy. Thank you for your efforts, hard work and time.

Slow Painful Death Or Fast Disappear In The Middle Of The Night?
Where is There headed? We can draw from two examples: The Sims Online and Uru. Uru disappeared in the middle of the night without notice, where Sims online still exists. I still have freak friends that play Sims Online! Is There more like Uru or Sims Online? It's more like Sims Online. Sims is the most successful PC game ever and only the online was a flop. Maxis kept online alive since it's cheap and easy once you decide not to develop anything new. Just keep the servers up and cut services to a minimum. There most likely will follow this lead since they have said they need to focus on their profitable markets ie military. They can't disappear in the night since they are still earning incomes that way. I think they will run the consumer game division with a skeleton crew. It's cheap to keep servers up with no service and no new products. Just keep things running.

I believe "There the Game" will be around at least in the short term and people will still be playing, just like Sims Online. Sims Online has bee up for one and a half years already.

Market Crash
In a dark sort of way, watching a virtual market crash is kind of interesting. :) LOL I don't think There market will crash too badly. I think there will be excessive $T sales all this week and a lot more houses will hit the market. The public really has a short memory...in a month, most players will have forgotten about this blib, the routine will return, and business will be like usual.

I don't think 2000:1 can hold. I think a bunch of players are going to look to new games and old players are going to be more cautious and convert goods to cash. I can't see the black market rate holding solid with such huge downward pressures. Pulling numbers out of my ass, I would guess we will see 3000:1 temporarily, then recovering to the 2500:1 range.

Check out GOM today, and you will see that a lot of buyers are fishing around trying to get 40 cents for 2000 when the normal rate is $1. Sellers are looking for 80 cents. My guess is that there may be a bunch of sales at 50-60 range short term, and then recovery to the 75-85 cent range. People still buy simoleans on ebay ;) and the rate seems to be $28 for 500,000.

Numbers Rarely Lie
I have been asking "where is the money" since at least September last year. There Inc. simply was not making enough money to turn a profit. I have so much to say about this and how they could of, but I will save that story for tomorrow, and yes, lots of reference to porn. ROFL :) Here are the signs that There Inc was in trouble:

CEO Tom gets the axe
Tom got the axe because they were in hella trouble then. Tom never would of got the axe if they were printing money. They probably felt a new CEO would give them the answer to profitability.

No New CEO was ever found
Rememeber they were looking for a fancy pants CEO? Well fancy pants CEOs are 500 large or more a year, and I doubt they wanted to give away another half mil, so they probably wanted one that would invest. Next, any pro-level CEO must of said "can I see the books" and then had to think "fuck, you folks are not making any money".

Staff Was Let Go
A bunch of staff then got the axe next. These are bandaid solutions to a giant problem. There was not making any coin and trying to save money.

Houses
You can watch house prices. If you ever wanted a house, I think now is the best opportunity ever to buy ;) Several houses at $T 0.00 bids.

The Platform Is Synonymous with Engine
In the press release There stated:
There is changing its strategic direction to focus on our technology platform.

You may recall that I often spew about the "Quake3 engine" or Unreal Engine...this is the exact same thing. Engine is platform. I think this is a good move and many of us have suggested it in the past. This will not help the game side, but it will help the There Inc Business.

Who Could There License The Engine Too?
There could License the technology platform to lots of places. Here are some ideas that come to my mind.

1) Online Dating
Walk over to Match.com and cut a deal. Then the horny dating crowd can actually meet and chat 3D in game. This is win win.

2) Poker
I have been spewing all week about poker...it's huge. There should make a There-Cards version that is not buggy and license to one of the top poker houses. The games would be fun and social and more interesting.

3) Porn
Porn sites love new ideas. Most big porn companies turn out 5-10 new paysites a year and they are always looking for a unique edge. There could cut a deal with one of the top10 players and ThereXXX would be a big win win hit.

4) Counter Strike
There is already military! Hello! It does not take a rocket scientist to look at this top40 list of games and notice that the TOP7 are all MILITARY. License or build a military game version of There. This is by far the most popular version of games on the web.

5) Swords and Sorcerers
There just watched NCsoft hit two homeruns with Lineage and City Of Heros. Go to NCsoft and say "what can we do together?" Social alone just does not work, it never has. There has to be a core game or competition. Add some code and make there Dungeon and Dragons and have levels and monsters and wandering around exploring. It's not a big stretch.

6) AOL
License to AOL. They need fun content for people. This might be a nice tie in for one of their areas.

There are many opportunities for There Inc business to license the engine.

How Could There Inc Make Some Coin Now?
There needs money and they also don't want to piss off the fanbase. Here is what they should do...make two phone calls: one to Maxis (sims) and one to Linden Labs (second life). You then say "look, we are struggling and want to tailor out our consumer side. Let's cut a deal...we will sell you our subscriber base if you offer our users a deal."

And so you get Sims Online and Second Life to offer a deal something like....one month free for any subscriber to There...or two months free if you give us your credit card for rebilling. In return, There gets $20-$40 per subscriber. There is a fast $500,000 for There (assuming their press about 20,000 subscribers was not hot air). Game players get to play a new game free for a month or two and are not out in the cold.

Tomorrow On There Frisky...
Come back tomorrow because I will be spewing my lips of on:

-why there failed
-the problem of falling in love with the product
-subscription based businesses
-porn
-if you build it they will NOT come