One month after the release of pCars, why so little ROI data?

Maybe I missed something and maybe I’m just trying to provoke a fight, but a big selling point of the WMD program for Project CARS was the potential ROI, or return on investment for all 80,000+ WMD members including yours truly. Broken down below in this quick Microsoft Excel chart are the “estimates” of WMD returns – and this was something available to all WMD forum members during development to take a look at. Everyone who bought into this modified early access program was to receive some sort of financial gain from this endeavor:Untitled-2A month after release, the WMD forums have been oddly silent, instead promoting DLC, user-made YouTube trailers, and generic celebratory topics cheering about the game finally being released after four years in development.

Profits

Other sites paid to advertise Project CARS also continue with the generic celebratory posts, claiming that the crowd funded racing sim has increased sales in toy steering wheels.

perferred pronounsWMD user Stephane Behr asked this question directly on the WMD forums, again a place that should be directly concerned about authentic sales and ROI figures since that was a large draw of the WMD program to begin with. Simply put, he wanted to know if he should get excited about the profits he and the 79,999 other WMD members will be receiving.

123He’s instead met with two replies, one of which gives an unofficial number and no clear data that will benefit WMD users.

34It’s great for them that the game’s finally been released. But now it’s time to talk business. Where’s the cold hard data that WMD members have been looking for? You’d think, as this was such a large draw of the program, that the numbers would be carefully monitored by Slightly Mad Studios and the community would be constantly updated on the ROI they’d be receiving.

Except they aren’t. So what’s up?

12 thoughts on “One month after the release of pCars, why so little ROI data?

  1. Anonymous says:

    That’s because the question was answered officially a couple of times.

    We were told that we will receive the revenues every 3 months. That means that we will receive money for the first time around August and it was already confirmed that we will atleast get a bit more than what we pay.

    We will have more info around August, probably in July, on how all of that will happen.

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  2. Anonymous says:

    This is rich, PRC pressing the issue of profits after attacking SMS any chance you could get and claiming that WMD members were all about the money, so their opinion about the sim cannot be trusted. You guys are despicable. I guess being on an ideological crusade doesn’t pay well.

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    1. Anonymous says:

      Well, given that the game is a broken, unplayable mess and has already fallen off most people’s radar, what else are they supposed to talk about?

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      1. Anonymous says:

        Reading the official forum .. it looks like isn’t that “out of people radar!” :)

        PS: XBOX 1.4 patch has been released right now! YEAH!

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      2. Anonymous says:

        “People are still posting on the Official Limp Bizkit forums, that means they’re totally still popular!!!”

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    2. Anonymous says:

      What are you saying, exactly?

      The gist of it as far as I can tell is: “You guys used to attack SMS for using murky business practices and now that they’re doing it again you have no right to comment because you said a while back that WMD members might not be the most impartial reviewers of a product they were directly involved in!!!”

      Is this what you meant? Are you /literally/ this stupid?

      >I guess being on an ideological crusade doesn’t pay well.

      What does this mean? To me it seems like a passive way of implying that PRC should align with the likes of SMS and attempt to bleed a profit from any little thing, OR that having principles, and trying to remain impartial in general does not make one rich. What’s wrong with that? What do you think you were trying to say? I’m honestly at a loss here, please enlighten me.

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    3. Tabrobot says:

      I invested in PCars and I think this is a perfectly valid point to raise, as have been all previous PCars posts on this site.

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  3. Anonymous says:

    I put more money into pcars than I want to admit.

    Its true, there is no sticky thread or “idiots guide to your investment” anywhere. Ian loves to bicker with trolls, why couldnt he use that time for a “weekly projected earnings” thread?

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    1. Anonymous says:

      He posted about this even today (or yesterday, I don’t remember),use the “DEV POST” button and keep yourself updated! You put money into pcars… but money and “idiots guide” doesn’t work good together! You should take care of your money!

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  4. Anonymous says:

    80,000 members? They are 29,000…
    Also, they already replied multiple times to this question (that can also be read on the TOS everyone has subscribed): info will be given around July/August. First payments will be made in the quarter following the money receipt from the distributor/Valve.
    I think the poster doesn’t know much about WMD.

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  5. Anonymous says:

    Boy, a lot of WMD zealots do read this blog. Amazing all this patrolling. You guys sound like the Hitlerist youth or Komsomol, a bunch of aggressive tyrannical fanboys that have nothing better to do in life than patrolling comments trying to discredit anything, even slightly bad, people say about PCars and Holy Ian Bell, first of his name.

    Virtualr lost all its credibility because of his moderator patrolling, even on other blogs. How crappy is racing community these days? And with the amount of negativity that PCars brought in during the last three years… it’s a broken community now.

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  6. anon says:

    The gist of it is that you don’t know much how selling a retail game works. They aren’t giving data:

    A: because it’s not accurate yet – getting retail sales data doesn’t happen instantly neither can you make accurate predictions as to what the numbers will be in 3 months when you actually do receive the money (the developer that is). Certain digital platforms also provide that revenue in quarterly sets so whatever data they would give is not accurate completely.

    B: you can’t disclose it all. Most platforms prevent you from disclosing the sales without very heavy and strict NDA’s so they really can’t disclose it properly, especially because people would just leak it for dire consequences to the developer/publisher.

    C: as said, it’s pointless at the point where no one can know what the first payment will be because it’s still so far away and the market isn’t exactly predictable. They have mentioned that it’s in the profit and imho that’s what we need know now.

    So yes it really feels like you’re picking a fight because you have made almost zero research on the matter and how game sales revenue works.

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