For sustainability, what do you aim to be the primary revenue source?

I've read the Monetization page, where there are 5 different revenue streams you hope to capitalize on. However, I know some of those may not bring in much money (like merchandizing) and the operating costs to maintaining and improving the game will remain perpetual. Like most MMO's, you provide a "premium currency", gold, to buy with real money. However, you stipulate gamers can only buy gold and will use that to make in-game purchases, there will be no "out of game store" for specific items like ships, etc, so it won't bring in as much money as the store would for World of Tanks or similar MMO's

I'm not too familiar with how much advertising brings in, so I'm just curious how revenue will be made post-launch.

The core income are the subscription fees. The secondary income are the free to play gamers making purchases. Those will be gold exchange and character unlocks. If you want to be efficient in the game, at least 2 characters is a good idea.

The amount of gold gamers want to spend in game will likely still be based on buying ships, outfits, business expansions, better housing, etc. But we added an intermediate step, and put gamers in between those transactions. The idea is that overall there will still be the expenditure, but gamers themselves create the products for it. As it's a closed system, you can't take money out of the game, it still has the result, more indirectly, of creating revenue. And as we put gamers in between, objects will become more customized, unique and desirable. In Rulers of the Sea you might buy a ship, perhaps, because it has a reputation, fame, instead of just being a model all the other gamers have. Or you want to employ soldiers that are true veterans, have been though specific wars. Or even some unique historical characters. Whatever you buy, it is something no-one else has. You don't have the disappointment of buying that special magic sword or flying dragon, and then seeing everyone has one. That greatly devalues your in-game property.    

It's a bit how Second Life makes money with Linden Dollars. The economy is run by gamers, they produce all the things for sale, except direct land sales, but Linden Labs also makes money, by the token of that exchange. We're not doing exactly the same, because we don't want to link it to trade in real money (because we feel that can quickly become exploitative), but it does show a model that works.

So it's experimental, but with the added value of gamer production, we think it should work well. Perhaps even better than the traditional models. But we'll only know by trying. There are some balances we can play with to adjust it just right. That all has to do with how easy it is to make money in the game. You want businesses to be exposed to risk, not every business should easily turn a profit. Money has to be scarce enough to make business exciting. Not too hard, not too easy. That balance will also determine the success of the gold exchange. If you're really good, you should never need to be tempted to exchange gold. But if you are an average business person, you might sometimes be tempted, when the chips are down. And when you're really bad at it, than money will be tight. So we can balance that, for instance, with the conditions against which in-game banks loan money to businesses. Or the gold to currency exchange value. All very indirect. But it should have an effect.

So does that answer the question?

I hope you are planning on particular taxes for items (thinking luxury and land taxes -etc..) that are adjustable per country and market to add incentive to the player economy that you change maybe once quarterly up or down to a degree as well as transaction taxes for everything sold via venues. Moreover, also a robust maintenance, upgrade and salvage cost model as well. I would also consider extreme decimation taxes for newly conquered areas that diminish over say a month until things return to normal. War is extremely expensive after all and rebuilding even more so.  Speaking of which when conflicts and wars are settled there should be a big tax paid by all involved parties with the defeated paying the much larger share of course. The tax could be taken from the national economy as well as a percentage from all the players involved and every player in the conquered country if a nation falls.    

It is not that I want to oppress people but simply that you will have builtin tools to provide a needed money sink which mature franchises tend to suffer from and more importantly be able to tweak things subtly in various ways, in various countries, and markets, to facilitate economic development.     

there will be adjustable taxation on different goods and services, so there's that.

As for war reparations, I like the idea! I'm sure this can be implemented by players, demanding a "tribute" so to speak for peace or after war has been concluded. And if it is not provided, then the armies will march again. But I'm not so sure what the devs have in mind for conquring territory... I know capitols cannot be owned by another nation directly, only as a client state. Could the capitol be the lone state of the client with the rest of the territory annexed by the victorious powers? 

Yes, all both of you say is possible!

As usual, we leave it all up to the governments!

There is a wide array of taxes. For citizens of different classes, for businesses per the different business lines, capital tax, trade tax, dividend tax. etc. Some taxes are set at national level, and a lot can be set per port. So you can vary taxes locally and have different taxes in client states. So everything is possible. The only restriction is that a tax rate can be changed no more than once a week. That is to create some reliability for businesses. If they would chance daily that would drive everyone mad.

This is just tax. You can see that the job of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the most complicated in the game. There is also currency, fractional reserve, stocks and bonds, central bank policy, it will take gamers with real economic insight to get a grip of it. I wouldn't be surprised if good Chancellors keep getting appointed by different Prime-Ministers from different political parties. If you find one that can keep the economy stable, he/she is worth their weight in gold.

I'd also like to bring your attention to victory conditions! Big fleet battles or army campaigns are events that Armies and Navies can plan together. This can be one single engagement, but also returning events. Like a competition. For instance 6 fleet battles or land battles, once a week. So gamers can prepare. And scores are kept, Whichever nation wins the most battles, wins the campaign.

With the approval of government, Admiralty and Army Boards can attach victory conditions to these campaigns. These can be as far reaching as a peace agreement and a sum for reparations. Or territory. So two nations can agree to an organized long term war, with high stakes at the end of it. And of course, in the mean time they can also harass each other in smaller ways to try to weaken them for the upcoming battle and turn the odds a bit.

So that is an interesting play mechanic that can also enforce a dramatic outcome for the winner and loser.    

@petersj

I was also talking about you, as the developer having triggers at various dimensions to provide an invisible hand of providence so to speak providing ques to the more astute and deft players in the real war the war of time or simply the economic one. 

@faust

There will definitely be monitoring and tooling in place to aid the hand of providence. And keep the game playable if it threatens to go off rails or become less fun. But where that hand of providence will act, and how, that should really never be noticeable in my opinion. As Rulers of the Sea is not a 'spreadsheet' game, in that we stay close to the 18th century, expressing a lot of numerical values in summarizing words, it will be a bit easier to keep that hand of providence obscured.

But if you refer to interference into actual game play, as in events, then we do have some options to make the Monarch sometimes act up a bit. To introduce some cloak and dagger. And political tension. Create some opposition to arise.

And as for national events: the Monarchs will die and be succeeded according to their actual historic life paths. So occasionally you get a big event in a country with a funeral and a coronation! An event for which other Monarchs will also turn up.

Hello guys,

I'm pleased to learn about Rulers of the Sea, a dream game concept and I really wish and hope You guys can manage this and get the required funding!

Playing and following MMOs since 2000 and being involved in many indie MMO projects for years and now in Dual Universe, Chronicles of Elyria and Star Citizen I'm highly sceptical though that this will be so easy.

Rulers seems to be as ambitious and quite similiar in many aspects to Chronicles of Elyria. Soulbound Studios started like You, with only great ideas on paper, hoping to get serious funding after a successful kickstarter. Kickstarter was indeed successful and got them over 2 Million $. But they just then started hiring people and working on the project. And to this day they only have design documents and concept art to show, very few in-engine gameplay and the project is dragging along with several problems and without much visible progress. And they still don't have any investors with serious money to support the project.

Novaquark, the developers of  Dual Universe, also did a successful kickstarter. But they indeed got investors to invest 11. Mill+ Dollars into the project after this. Their kickstarter was mainly a demonstration to their investors that people want a game like this and also want to pay for it.

So what was the difference?

Novaquark had an established studio with working staff already in place. And they had a WORKING PROTOTYPE of their game developed already, in pre-alpha stage, with the engine and basic tech already in place. A working game prototype + interest from the community (successful kickstarter) = money from investors to fund the project! Thats the formula in my opinion.

So my points are:

-I estimate You will need serious money in the double digit million €/$-range to do an ambitious MMO-project like this.

-You will need to have the basic tech and at least a minimal working pre-alpha game-prototype already in place before reaching out to investors. I don't think having only great ideas and design documents will be enough to impress investors.

-You will have to hire a lot more staff, especially experienced programmers in the network/client-server/engine/database/system integration side of things.

Don't get me wrong, I wish You success and I really want a MMO like Rulers!
So please learn from the problems of projects like Chronicles of Elyria and learn from the success and successful funding of Dual Universe.

@costanius

Hi Costanius, thanks for your feedback. I really appreciate it! But as always, I do reply extensively to serious questions and might not always agree. When that is the case I am as open and honest as I can. But don't take it the wrong way, because I love discussion and have total respect for other points of view, that can only make us better. 

I realize that this website is far from perfect yet, so it is probably not easy to find all the information. But all your questions are answered in several places and I have the impression that you have not had an opportunity yet to read it all.

We have not started this project on a whim, and if you look at our resumés you'll see that the partners in this project have a lot of business experience. That is what makes us different. You don't see a lot of people with 20+ year careers in business enter the game development arena. I know of none and I have spent years studying game development and working out their business cases. What I mean to say by that is that all the things you mention, and many more, have been carefully considered.

You don't need to estimate our budget because that has been calculated already in quite some detail. We've shared that in other posts. So we know quite well what we need. You are under the impression that we are looking to run a campaign like Chronicles of Elyria or Dual Universe, but that is not the case. You also presume we will go for a Kickstarter, but that is also not the case.

Because we have a different background our approach to this project is also very different. Kickstarter is relatively uninteresting for us, because average funding amounts are insufficient compared to our budget, there is a risk to it, and it offers a very poor deal for gamers. So it is unlikely we will ever consider it.

We aim to build up our starting capital by offering share certificates in the game directly. This is something that hasn't been done like this before, except for a platform like fig.com, which has been operating for a few years now with some successes (but we don't think that structure is a good fit with an MMORPG, and there are some other issues with it). We will start with offering shares directly, and we will evaluate the structure on the basis of that experience. It's an experiment in democratizing game development.

In addition we will look for private equity capital for which our backgrounds are going to be helpful. We have different experiences and contacts compared to other projects you mention. There are interested parties. That notwithstanding, we do need a proof of concept, which is our success in securing a large enough community that also engages and invests (time or money).

In addition there are the pre-subscription sales. They are already selling, and we haven't even really fully kicked off the full campaign yet. In addition we will develop more pre-game content to re-enforce those subscriptions, a similar idea to how Star Citizen created additional content. This is currently in development as a first stage, you can read about it in the dev blog.

As for expanding the team, you might want to have a look at www.deadeye-games.com. That is a work in progress. The team is now 15 strong, it was 3 before the summer, so its expanding. Also with ever more good expertise. So we are not worried there, there is plenty of interest.

As to your other points: If you look at the design of an MMORPG, and this one in particular, it must be apparent that a "working pre-alpha game-prototype" is beyond the realm of reality. To get to that stage we would already need many millions. That is the consequence of MMO building, especially one as heavy on simulation as Rulers of the Sea. These are the most complex game projects to build. It is also not the case that a project only gets funding when they have achieved this, that is not a generalization you can credibly make. Many game projects require a big investment to even be designed, let alone built. That is what game publishers do for a living, they fund studios. I think the most apt example is the movie industry, where you simply sell a script and a project setup (actors, director, etc.) to get financed. If movies only got funding at the stage where the raw footage is already shot not a single movie would ever be made. If you're a independent film maker and you want to make your first film, you will find it more difficult. But it happens all the time. All famous directors of today, be it Tarantino, Spielberg, Raimi or Scott, had that first film.  

And with games that is also the case. You mention a few projects, but I think that tends to be very selective. I can name you as many projects that did make it. I can also name you projects that made it but of which everyone said they would never make it. Your case is that it can't be done, mine is that it can. And I can promise you that we can both find equally convincing examples to prove that we are right. I have seen so many in the past 30 years.

The reality is that every game project is different and every period in time changes their landscape. I have done nothing but study them the past years. Of course, if you want to see patterns you will find them. If you are looking for the rules of success you will find them. But you do then have to conveniently ignore all the outliers. I can show you many games that came about by completely ignoring these rules and were very successful and are still successful today. Games I still play. I can also show you projects that followed your rules but failed anyway. No game project is alike, they all have their own very unique stories and you really can't find rules for success. It's about passion, determination, vision, risk and a whole lot of luck. And a very healthy fanbase.

Rulers of the Sea is a big project, but for an MMORPG project, medium size. Certainly not triple A. Rulers of the Sea has a very particular niche, in that sense it is nothing like the games you mentioned. We have a totally different demographic, you might as well compare Rulers of the Sea to Fortnite. And that matters. Market is key and investors know that. Making yet another fantasy or sci-fi MMORPG with little originality is a flawed concept long before you start looking for financing. The way you describe it, it is almost like the content of the project is irrelevant for its success, like it's all about a technical approach. But in my opinion the content of the project is everything, far more important than any other factor. If enough people believe in a thing it will happen. Because it then can, because it will present multiple opportunities to reach a goal.

So in the end it is only about one single thing. Community. Enough people need to love it. If that succeeds, and we maintain enough of a business sense, the rest will follow. That is why we will also allow the community to participate in making the game, by allowing them to contribute to the content in all kinds of ways and even buying actual share certificates and share in the risks if they want. That's why we take values very seriously and have published them here. Because we have a dream we want to share.

Hello Peter,

thank You very much for Your extended reply! I really appreciate You took the time to write it!

Well, I don't think You can compare filmmaking with game development, but I get Your point. I'm fascinated by Your game setting, concept and ideas which I really like, but I'm also just a bit sceptical because recently I have heard all that already before. Chronicles of Elyria started the exact same way: They had a great "script" and vision for an awesome MMO, a lot of optimism, a "great, well thought-out plan", the expertise etc etc etc. And they sold different noble titles with associated land in advance, even King titles, to fund the project. Now four years later the project is still dragging along with not much visible progress. And with every MMO-project like this the trust in the MMO-community vanishes and people get even more sceptical to pre-fund MMO-game concepts, Pre-Alphas and Early Access games without seeing a working game prototype already in place, some visible progress before comitting to it.

I hope and wish Your project will work out as planned and will be successful. I really do!

@costanius

I do understand the skepticism, I have also seen plenty of failed projects. And we might be one too. These are high risk projects at any day. So I will not give a 'success guaranteed' pledge. People support it because they believe in it, and otherwise it's best to move on, right? As for us, we're realists, we're not pulling the wool over anybody's eyes. We've invested a lot in it ourselves so we're in with a personal risk, a lot bigger than that of any community member will ever be. It's a dream, you believe in it. If you don't, what's the point of anything? 

Personally I didn't like Chronicles of Elyria that much. I saw flaws in the setup, and what bothered me most is that a number of details on how to build it (design) remained vague. I have seen that in most projects like it. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline to truly finish a design, actually developing all the mechanics, solving all the models, before you even start. The design of Rulers of the Sea has taken 3 years to get to this point. You can ask any question about it and you will find out that we have really  developed the GDD in-depth. This is because that is how it works in business. We have all ran major IT projects worth millions of euro's, and a board of directors generally releases budgets for those projects with the expectation that the design of your system is complete and the budget, market research and business case is as detailed and de-risked as possible. In business you don't approach these projects with vague designs and general goals unless you wish to end your career very quickly. So I am always surprised to see these big game projects commence with lots of uncertainties. That is going to lead to scope creeping, huge risks and a lot of re-work causing huge inefficiency. That's not our approach.

But I will make the point again: any game project can succeed if the concept is strong. A really good idea is an unstoppable force, regardless what it is. The MMORPG's out there are all competing in the same categories, they have huge overlaps. They are exclusively fantasy or sci-fi. They all share the same types of mechanics, with a new feature mixed in here and there. Chronicles of Elyria does not stand out that much for me. I just find all these designs seem to basically clone existing concepts and add a twist. That is fine, and it can work, but you have to deal with a lot of competition. You know Chronicles of Elyria is going to have to directly compete with Elder Scrolls Online, WOW, Guild Wars, etc., etc., I can put ten more names there without having to look anything up. So they have tweaked the guild system with families and tribes. For the rest I don't see that much difference, skill, combat, crafting, etc. Some people will love it, and I like the tweaks, but I just don't see huge factors that make it stand out. It's basically another SUV in the SUV market. All different, everyone has their own preferences, but in the end of the day it's a SUV, not a helicopter. You are selling on the same market and must hope enough people see why your SUV is better. While a lot of SUV drivers like to stick with a familiar brand.

Me, I'm done with the whole fantasy genre, I don't want to play a fantasy character in a fantasy world, I'm getting too old for that. I'm also tired of Sci-Fi for the same reasons. So where do I go for my MMORPGs? I can't be bothered to waste time on grinding. I hate micro transactions and game skin or ship shops. MMORPGs are dead for me, there is literally nothing out there anymore, simply because of those preferences, let alone for what I would really love. Real world. History. There are no other fish in our pond.

Name me one MMORPG game without grinding, but instead an education system. Or one where you really recruit and command a crew, soldiers or workers of unique npc's. With a government system where gamers are really in charge. Where all articles are sold in-game, by other gamers, with a freedom to create unique ships, outfits, weaponry. A real world day and night cycle and real world cultural zones. A real world economy and business system, up to currencies, central banks and stock markets. With a focus on commanding as a Captain or Officer instead of doing the fighting or sailing yourself. Where statistics are hidden and you need to build experience and use common sense to get to grips with values. And most importantly, where you play in real world history, and get an opportunity to rewrite it.

You might like it or you might hate it. But there is nothing like it out there. There is literally no game that competes. So at least Rulers of the Sea has cornered a good niche. Investors like that. The only question is: do enough gamers (of a very special kind) want it?

Rulers of the Sea is not going to appeal to a wide audience. But my bet is that the type of gamer that will like it will be a very different brand of gamer. A type of gamer that no MMORPG games are made for right now.

@petersj

For what it's worth, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the size of this "niche", Peter.

It's not simply going to attract history nerds.  It'll attract sim gamers. Management gamers. Strategy gamers. Naval gamers. Maybe even social gamers if the Hospitality careers are robust.

Now, it'll obviously never be WoW with 12million unique subscribers. But with a great design (check!) a great team (working on, but check so far), great marketing (jury's still out, but looking good so far) and a great community you can really make a splash.

Plus, as you mentioned above, you're the only fish in a fairly large pond. If the game catches on, you've got a LOT of untapped market.

@heptarch

Thanks! I totally agree! We've calculated the ceiling potential of Rulers of the Sea on 500.000 subscribers, based on some market research (with lack of enough good data, I must add). That is only based on the western market as we had no reliable way to estimate the Asian potential (which might be a surprise!). If we ever reach that 500K ceiling we would do very very well financially. Our calculated profit point would be around 20.000 subscribers (including supporting continual new content release). These numbers sound high, but are actually very modest for an MMORPG (as I suspect you know). So we are very optimistic about the potential, it doesn't need to grow beyond a very medium size to do well and be sustainable. We are convinced it has the legs for that.

Thanks again Peter for a detailled reply!

I completely agree with You what You wrote about the MMO-market, the domiance of fantasy, the many WoW-clones. I don't like fantasy-MMOs and themepark-MMOs either. Most mainstreqam MMOs haven't been very innovative for a long time since the first iterations, too many tried to copy the WoW-formula and I absolutely agree that real life history has so many possibilities for great MMO projects.

To be fair, a few small and innovative MMOs with a real life history setting existed and still exist, mostly from small indie developers who don't get much attention from the gaming media. World War II Online (WWII) is running since 2001 (!), they have player-controlled high command, officers, town and territory control in a persistent zoneless scaled down Western Europe Map with campaigns where one faction wins and the other faction looses. A Tale in the Desert is a mainly economy and community-focused little MMO in an ancient egypt setting, with player-voted and player-made rules and legislation. You already know about Naval Action, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Uncharted Waters Online, probably Voyage Century Online which is similiar to UWO. They all have a history-based setting in common, but they all remained nice games with a small playerbase. Apparently either their theme or their concept didn't attract a higher number of players over time.

Just recently a few new MMO-projects came up with (some) innovative ideas. Worlds Adrift tried to be creative with player-made skyships and player-made islands, unfortunately they failed. Dual Universe is SciFi, but a next level creative MMO-open-world sandbox where player can create and build spaceships and buildings, the economy is player-run and territory control and some kind of political system is planned. To be fair to Chronicles, they plan a player-run politcal system as well, where players can be mayors of towns, Counts, Dukes and even Kings who reside over their land and are part of a player-run hierarchical feudal system. So fortunately there is some movement and some innovation in the MMO-Genre.

But what really lacks is a new fresh innovative MMO in a real-world-based history setting. I agree. And I hope the niche You are aiming for is big enough to make Your project viable.

I hope You guys can do it! 🙂