@ZealousZam Feel. I REALLY wanted last event's Celestial Princess Monk. - Really hope future Captain codes/Crawls have this skin. Not the important matter of today, buuuuut ... lack of exclusives being reran definitely has worn me personally down, FOMO is not a good practice to overuse like SR/SP has.
@PearlWhirls I'm just wondering because I don't know much about it at all, but I'm seeing layoffs everywhere. It's also something different because several of those companies display their profits, so it's easy to say "They did layoffs while having 500% increase in profits"
@AlfredGG I work in tech, and have been in startups and scaleups (although I've not been in one). This stuff happens all the time sadly. I have survived and not survived many layoffs.
@AlfredGG Pandemic gave hope to people optimistic about technology and the future possibilities. Underestimating how many people prefer offline lives, or lives enhanced by tech but not dominated by it. - Streaming definitely got hit hard by this.
I’m just going to say how things went down with people getting laid off/fired and community getting this info feels super morally wrong…. Very morally wrong. I’m not okay with this.
I don't think there was anything wrong with how Pirates as a game was being made. I liked how flexible the complexity was. I just don't think you all actually gave it the support it deserved and instead invested in too many games at once.
I remember during a past dev stream, revenue numbers for the first 2 years of Stream Raiders was shared. (The numbers were over $1m but under $2m) - But it still wasn’t profitable at that time. Was that “failure to be profitable” strictly based on the costs of operating Stream Raiders. Or Was that deficit also including the costs incurred by development for Pirates?
@AlfredGG Certainly a limited demographic, at the mercy in part of Twitch supporting its creators proper too. (which is a failing in its own right, albeit YouTube does it through less morally sound means)
You didn't support Pirates enough to get it to a place to where it could support you. Personally, I think Nitro was a mistake, but now the costs are sunk
@Agent347 The whole premise of making a streamer led game solely relies on the ability of the streamer to rally their community for support. It's tough to begin with.
I feel like you guys should have launched pirates and have it a fighting chance. You didn’t even have skin gifting. Like wtf?? Nitro won’t save us. If we’re riding on nitro sr is doomed.
Chat, you need to chill about The Streamer Awards. Ludwig has a personal financial investment in CaptainTV. His Partner, QT Cinderella, was the host/l creator for The Streamer Awards. That even’t was NOT the issue for CaptainTV and budgeting.
Need to continue developing Raiders in versus and dungeons…. That would draw more people in again and take old people back who bailed when you guys stopped with versus and dungies. If you stop development on your main game raiders, you’re not going to make as much money. Obviously.
@AlfredGG Lots of variables at !play, for sure. I have enough experience with one or two community members holding a lot of weight in a stream interactive game not be played more frequently.
Different of opinion, @fearowgaming - I think Nitro Looks better and is way more enjoyable than Marbles. More interesting to look at for sure. Has some rough edges for sure. But Marbles was always boring AF to me.
@will_grams I’d assume it likely comes with promotions and trying to get large streamers to showcase the game several streams. also the cost of making the sprites and just a lot of the general overhead.
Nitro is boring....i love pirates and i just started streaming it!! Again can we do a fundraiser?! I want to support you all!!! Let us help! Turn the store back in..give us 2 months. Let us try
I think your time and money into raiders and NOT nitro. Also a thought was, why not have made pirates as a different game mode in raiders instead of a whole new game…. The foundation was there for everything. Seems so silly.
I feel like it's easy to run away with ideas, especially for creatives and those with the skills to implement their ideas into a game. Hopefully there are good aspects that come from this to make it worthwhile.
I am honestly amazed at how much support there is for Pirates in this chat. Because legit that game felt less supported by the community than it even did by CaptainTV.
Nitro is NOT going to save us. So please get that out of your heads. Refocus on raiders and find a way to save pirates, scrap nitro instead or put on the back burner until you’re actually stable.
GOFUNDME/KICKSTART ETC....i will keep streaming pirates and support raiaing money for it! We want to support you. You may needed to downsize but lets build you back up!!!!!
@thewinterhyena to be fair, those things would be a temporary injection of cash, I'm sure we'd all be pretty pissed if we went out fundraising for it and it still couldn't stick around
Or asking for a community to support and help. Do a fundraiser, what all happened before laying people off happened? Besides promoting a new game? N more cost?
i think nitro got kept because it has the funding. it has money from the big bois. ludwig and quarterjade and all the faces. pirates didnt have that so it caugtht the axe.
the problem is you've known that CTV was on the bring of collapse for months while telling us that everything was fine. Open communication means you tell us when that decisions became inevitable not a week before launch *smh*
I think if VS Relaunched, maybe it could save up Raiders a little, but I lost hope trying to tell my suggestions, because it feels like it's being ignored
Like… BLINDSIDING everyone who worked on pirates was the issue…. Could have given everyone a heads up… months ahead of time. That’s the morally corrupt thing.
The only thing thats popping up for me, is if pirates was at a good state. Could sell it as a standalone game that streamer hosts voyage versuses having a server for.
Pirates is an amazing game and y'all just wanted to throw it in the trash because you saying that pirates didn't have enough money for it i don't think so y'all spent a lot of money on the Go Kart for no reason
@Hooks People are bad at framing feedback, and thinking about it in a scope beyond their own self. It's a challenge. - But there's a reason we're now in a spot where a lot of games' Hard mode is a joke.
Pirates is an amazing game and y'all just wanted to throw it in the trash because you saying that pirates didn't have enough money for it i don't think so y'all spent a lot of money on the Go Kart for no reason
Sorry to say, but the second point of a smaller team....sounds terrible. You cut down a bunch of people, you're making it smaller. Why are experienced people let go instead of newer people?
Pirates is an amazing game and y'all just wanted to throw it in the trash because you saying that pirates didn't have enough money for it i don't think so y'all spent a lot of money on the Go Kart for no reason
I think my biggest question, and a question a lot of people have is, why would you try to start ANOTHER game to become profitable instead of investing in the one, maybe two, game(s) you had in the beginning to be come profitable?
This is going to sound bad but please dont take offence,did you ever consider the only reason SR ever "took off" was because people were stuck inside during the pandemic and had nothing todo other than be on twitch?
I did like VS even if there was no prizes for captains with tickets and all just meeting and battling against other streamers is fun to meet and sometimes end up sharing each others community
I personally think Greed is one aspect that drove this company after Raiders had a lot of success….. when you develop games, if you aren’t focusing on making your ONE main game great, and constantly working on it, then move on to forget that OG baby game that made you tons of money, and then you bite off more than you can chew with pirates and nitro, what did you think would happen? It looks like greed and also was seen by a lot of us as “biting off more than you can chew”…..
CTV has given us an amazing platform and allowed me to grow and meet amazing friends. I just want to make sure I'm following the right path for my community.
It this sales this sales that, like hey guys it looks like we are gonna have to drop so and so if we can’t make up for it, the next events will go toward so and so.
@datdaddyzaddy - CaptainTV is honestly one of the more transparent companies out there. They were very upfront when they received the $10m Venture Capital Investment, and talked about how much StreamRaiders had made over the 2 previous years, but never hit profitability.
I feel like a go fund me or kickstarter project would be useful for new game launches with ctv (agreeing with previous suggestions). It would gain additional exposure to new target groups, while guaranteeing a goal for launch funding.
The artists were such a sink for captains to have to fight and argue to get halfway decent sprites while denying us the ability to just make our own. I feel like THAT was a really unnecessary money sink.
@DatDaddyZaddy do you ever isolate the individual graphics that're used in each gif? should take any artist time and they deserve adequate compensation for it.
I will say, I am extremely grateful for the SR community and the range of support within captain tv content creators. You don't see that very often which is probably why we are so passionate. If you have goals laid out and a plan, no doubt we will support it to make it happen.
I had an incredible time playing SR. So much fun in PVP, joining in on battles, ect. It just got to be too much, too overwhelming. An event would end and there wasn't much time between events. Good times tho.
@Schwahn_ @FerretBomb Yep, and artists tend to be underpaid a lot as is. Look at the anime industry mess, or Crunchyroll controversies over just how little their voice actors/translators get per episode. (which also are artists)
The thing is, every business is a gamble, owning a business, running a company is one of the hardest things. We make plans, goals , budgets etc. Nothing is going to be perfect. I feel like they are doing their best and unfortunately not everyone is going to be happy but they have to make the tough business decisions , doesn't mean they like the choices they have to make.
@ShanChan It is amazing to see the love within the community! Things may be tough, but whatever happens I think tons of y'all will forever be grateful for what the CTV games have done for bringing you together with other amazing people.
@Divatopia Facts. And then knowing that their company is all about Streamers, who are all ALSO running their own business... that makes it even harder.
@Divatopia I have 2 boys (both under 3) and running a business as a streamer is already incredibly difficult, let alone being a parent. Times are tough
When you say Friday "go pirates yay" then Tuesday you pull the plug.......sorry it's hard to believe you when you say "yay go SR" cause come next week.....it could meet the same fate
This decision feels very "last minute". I feel like the trust with many captains is more than shaken. Was there no way to gradually cut costs or was the decision just delayed for too long?
was it a thought that now that pirates was going to finaly have gifting of skins a lot of the features viewers wanted to let it go this voyage and see how it went?
these decisions can seem last minute to everyone but not every company has to disclose everything behind closed doors. I think they are being very VERY transparent considering the circumstances.
i know a lot of captains who wanted to stream Pirates but werent given access.. so what about the support people were trying to give that you didnt take?
You pulled your Pirates community from your Raiders community, so the pool of interested streamers was diluted by default. THEN kept it closed to the public. HOW is this an accurate assessment of the interest in Pirates? I really think this new update was going to address a lot things and breath life back in to the game as well as community interest.
@ctv_thomas @sc_brad Did laid off employees get severance/are they getting placement assistance? I know that layoffs are inevitable sometimes, but there are ways to mitigate the after.
pirates was such a unique game that alot of stuff the team was trying was super new and was never been done before (to my knowledge) and would always be a hit or miss.
@Skratched The UI didn't mesh with me, it overwhelmed me too much I just noped out Pirates hard. Confusing, unintuitive. - Raiders and Nitro both seem to be stronger in that department. Even if both need improvements still.
It was also rather hard to get a community built on grinding, into a game where they consistently lost their progress. While I understand a lot of alpha's and beta's do in fact do this wipe format. Contextually, it was never going to work with a community so centralized around progressing their accounts and armies. I'm sure many of us would of preferred some temporary bugs, as opposed to a forever bad game that couldn't receive proper feedback due to a lack of interest.
@thewinterhyena Sadly games and its servers have operating costs. Things break super randomly at times. I hope Pirates can get a future for you and the others here who enjoyed it.
I didn’t wanna play pirates cause it takes a lot of time and stuff more like main game. I like background game sr or versus abs dungies. I don’t dislike pirates but I know a lot of people who were waiting for pirates to go public.
nothing wrong with making a gamble and seeing if it sticks or not. you gave that team an opportunity to showcase their skills, and they develped a solid game. and it sounds like you're doing them as right as you can in current business environments
@Hooks True but talking through things with the folks first after working with these people was the compassionate thing to do. Which ctv_brad did not do.
@AlfredGG One thing that's brutal with Pirates set up .. if you don't like a Pirates event .. the next one is three months away. Three months, people tune out and move on.
I think everyone should understand that even though all of this sucks, and people will be missed... there are STILL GREAT PEOPLE in CaptainTV and we should not turn our back on THEM... I feel we need to continue to support CaptainTV cuz they supported US!!
Absolutely respect you for showing up and talking openly about this. Really hope the best both for everyone who has left the company and for everyone else going forward. Really hope to see a success made of Nitro and Raiders.