So I think the idea is its a bit like Second Life but more game focused?
I think it could have potential but there should be tools within the game world to create games. Having to make the games in Unity is OK to start with but isn’t a game-changer.
Not sure I would have bet $500 million on a two-person company. [Edit: Actually it says they employ 200] I mean they haven’t proven that they can hire 1000 people and manage them effectively which is probably what they would do with the money. They’re using Google Cloud apparently so they don’t even have to buy their own servers. But what do I know?
But anyway. Good news for the UK economy
Also I like the way it says “they partnered with Google to use their servers”. You don’t have to “partner with Google” to use their servers. You just sign up to Google cloud computing on their website. I suppose I am “partnering with Unity” to write this message.
500 million is a drop in the ocean for the UK economy. The only way this indicates any change is if it’s a start of a trend of more tech investment in the U.K.
Read the article again. It sounds like a closer relationship then that. They are basically using Googles servers to host a pre made MMO solution. You can’t do that on your own on google cloud.
Looking at the actual tech, it looks facinating. It appears to intergrate well with Unity. So this might be the beginning of the long awaited make-an-MMO button.
Mind you having thought about it, if the company is successful, and is worth a billion dollars. Then the company will be owned by Japan not the UK. So, it’s only good for the UK economy if the company fails! Otherwise its good for the Japanese economy.
What we want is more foreign companies investing in UK tech companies that spend all the money on UK workers wages and then go bankrupt. Hence keeping the flow of money into the UK and no profits going out. [Edit: Ok that doesn’t make sense either]
Can you not make a pre made MMO solution on Google Cloud? Don’t see why not. I’m sure you can do it on Microsoft cloud and Amazon as well. All the cloud has to take care of is spinning up new instances of whatever software you care to put on it. Maybe Google cloud is more restrictive IDK.
Anyway, people like to spin things. Like I remember someone on Dragon’s Den saying “we partnered with Google to put adverts on our website”. When really they meant they just signed up to AdWords. But the Dragons seemed impressed.
I like to be sceptical about every new thing until proven wrong.
Google’s Cloud appears to offer roughly the same services as Amazon’s Cloud. With all of the resources both companies provide I’d be surprised if you couldn’t run an MMO through them.
Yeah, I really like the idea actually! I might sign up too TBH! (Well if its free anyway)
But I remember I really liked OnLive when it came out. I thought it was great because I could play high end games on my laptop. Even though sometimes it wouldn’t save your game right. But despite the hype that went bust too. But it was fun while it lasted.
So once burned twice shy.
Also, they were given $20 million for a first investment. And apparently spent that employing 200 staff. So if each staff member got $100k for a years work that’s $20 million gone. How can you go from zero staff to 200 in one year? It doesn’t make any sense. The only thing I can think of is that just by having 200 staff makes your company look impressive enough to then go to a Japanese investor and ask for $500 million. What will they do with that? Employ 5000 staff and then run out of money in another year?
And if they were partnered with Google. Why didn’t Google just give them the money? Why get it from the Japanese?
Finally, what really is the market for this technology? How many MMO Unity Game Developer companies out there are there? There can’t actually be that many. And the really big ones can probably make something similar themselves. Are they really going to make a $1 billion profit?
With my “arm-chair economics” I’m getting a bad feeling about it! (Hope I’m wrong!)
With the way they’ve described their platform in the past it reminds me very much of EVE Online which is developed by CCP Games. They have 600 employees. Which is very understandable since as far as I’m aware they manage their own hardware.
Perfect World is at 4,500 employees. It’s very easy to expand to a large employee base once you have multiple MMOs across multiple regions which require constant development and maintenance.
Reading the material it looks squarely aimed at the hobbyist and indie market. Unity and Steam Green Light have clearly shown that you only need a few hits to pay for everyone else.
I’ve still got to evaluate the tech. But I’m tentatively excited. An MMO solution that’s accessible to a lone developer is perhaps the most exciting thing to happen in the hobbyist market since Unity and Unreal both went free.
And if it’s not these guys, then it will be someone else. Either way it’s coming.
