[Elevator]

I'm sorry. I have kinda stopped posting, but this thread is simply FAR too amusing!

Originally Posted by jamesr1ley

The brand is valuable, but not extremely so.

Only thing close to being sensible you said.
A brand is built over years, or spawned into existence overnight by a massive viral marketing no one can control (even though many attempt to). And one minor bad decision, which there has been many of in PA's history, has the potential to damage (or destroy) a brand for good. When such a decision is made most companies go bankrupt. Those who make it has to revitalize it's brand completely. The classic cases here are within jeans markets and it's changes through history. Without this massive change the brand will not survive. If you have a lack of the brand you literally have nothing. If no one knows the name of your product, or recognizes it's logo, no one will find your product. The product here is Planetarion. It is a game, one which I have started to enjoy again (scary that I've started to enjoy it again!). Giving up the brand is a huge risk, but the risk goes both ways.
1. Giving up the brand to start a similar game;
You have the potential of losing the die hard fans, the old school returning players. All those who suddenly lose interest in RL and decides to play a round or two again. The potential player base is debatable, but could be somewhere around 100k players (this number is imaginary, not realistic imo). But you can reach out to all gamers, and potential gamers, out there. You can steal playerbases from other games while there is no bad association with the game. It is risky, but that's business.
2. You keep the brand, make investments to improve the game;
All the years of poor management of PA will keep players away. Most people have the "burnt once, shame on you. Burnt twice, shame on me" built in and will leave it at burnt twice, never to try and put their damn hand on the stove again. Here you have two efforts need to be made. First you have to convince the current players that you are different from the previous owners, this requires time and money. You have to improve the game, and please the players. Secondly you will also have to attract new players, AFTER the current disgruntle playerbase is satisfied. If you fail to make the move the right way you will end up getting new players into a playerbase which is very negative towards the game. Which will make them leave rather quickly.

So. The brand Planetarion is life or death. If you want it done correctly you would spend about a month or so (depending on how well staffed you are) researching the costumers and setting up a brand analysis. This alone will cost you at least $10k (for a good analysis of the total market, including competitors games etc)(NB! As I am unfamiliar with the total market (gaming) I am assuming this price, normal analysis like this would run far higher, but I am also assuming the company is not wanting to throw money left and right). Without doing this I would never invest a dime in a company owning PA.

The best possible book to understand the importance of brands today would be "No Logo" by Naomi Klein. It really gives you an interesting perspective.

Originally Posted by jamesr1ley

I would therefore value the game realistically in commercial terms between £10,000 ($20000) and £20,000 ($40000) which is essentially just for the Brand.

Sorry I am saying this to you, as several others seems to agree, but these prices are retarded. If someone is selling for these prices it would be, imo, because they want to dump the game and cut their losses. Potential earnings over a 3 year period would be closer to the games price. The realistic value for a game like this is based upon how well you sell and how stupid the buyer is (the last part is the most important one).
Say you own a brand. Let's say a spa. The brand is damaged due to a closure of one of your spa centers. It lost you costumers, but it is still breaking even after this. You would like to sell it, and you value the spa according to your wishes (not always easy to stay objective and realistic). You set the sales price according to potential income, after you have gotten back the lost business. The reason why is because of the brand. Damaged relations needs to be fixed, but it is doable. You take the potential earnings over a time period of at least the time you have ran the spa (say 5 years). This time has been rather troubled. There has been time where you have not broken even and you have gotten into debt etc. Naturally, if you sell, you would like compensation for the time spent, essentially for the job done. You add into the price, in addition to equipment (massage tables, swimming pools, sauna etc) compensation for your time (what you call this cost in a sales pitch is irrelevant (you could call is the cost of brand or some stupid thing like that). The potential income, what you would make regardless of how much time you spend on the company, would also be sensible (from your view) to add to the sales price. So now you have;
Equipment price
+Compensation for time spent on the company
+Potential earnings over the following 3 years (which is reasonable)
=Your sales price

So if someone was to sell PA, without dumping it I would assume the price would be about triple what you guys have guesses here. But that might just be me...I mean; wtf do I know?

Originally Posted by jamesr1ley

however you would need at least £300k ($600k) to turn make any significant money on that investment.

Who in their right mind would believe that? The only successful marketing that happened for PA in the early days was; word of mouth. And someone had a filthy mouth saying this was a good game to spend time on (if I run into my rl m8t who introduced him to this game I'll ask him to pay for the time wasted ).
The only option, imo, is to go viral. You have to create a buzz around the game, and you have to get key people involved. Maybe even get 3-4 old players whom all love to play (even if it means paying them to play, as long as they don't admit to being paid to play you should be fine). Creating a buzz is limited only to your imagination. The less money to spend, the more time consuming it is.
My guess is you would need either a LOT more, or hardly anything at all. I would assume you would need £20k or so here to start with, then to re-evaluate if the marketing was successful or not and what to do from there.
The tech part is far harder, at least for me, to predict. Based upon what I've seen it's very costly to make small changes, so here it comes more down to what type of team you assemble. If you get people who believe in the game you can get away with less, as long as you give them part of the company etc. I assume you can cut corners and make it about £50k. But this is in my assumption, and like I said; I'm clueless on tech and how massive changes needs to be made.

Originally Posted by jamesr1ley

If I was a millionaire with only 1 million I would stay clear. However for a private equity fund it could be a good investment.

If I was a millionaire with 1 million I would not even think about buying a game. A lot due to the fact that I think I'd hate to mange it, but mostly because I think this genre is comparable to the old school Nintendo or Sega 16-bit.
If I was invested in a private equity fund and the manager of the fund sent me an e-mail with the prospectus of investing in a game like this. I would reply that I would make my utmost effort to have him fired if he did. Complete insanity to invest in a project like PA with the current status of the market. I am referring to the heavy debt load of the average individual and my belief about global recession prior to turning into a new financial cycle, and not based on the performance (rather lack of) of the global stock market.

However, if my name was John Fredriksen or something of that sort I would probably buy PA for sentimental reasons (as the cost would be less than I spend on a single night at a club)...

But these where just my 2 cents...