It saddens us deeply to inform you all that Final Battleground is at a crossroads where over the coming weeks, site closure is a distinct and unfortunate possibility.
Four years ago, we (Demonic Gaming) set out to create a unique and ambitious development: a powerful stats driven tournament system which would bridge the gap between casual gamers and serious clan members in a huge ‘world domination style’ environment. To say that the concept was very ambitious would be a vast understatement given that we started with just two of us working at night after our day jobs.
Of course, we had no idea how much interest our vision would develop and how big the system or it’s associated community could become, we just wanted to build it and see what happens and over time, our team grew and so did our popularity.
In the years that followed, the Final Battleground community grew slowly at first but eventually picked up pace and formed an active user-base of hardcore Counter-Strike gamers that today stands at over 3,200 registered clans and 55,000 Profiles. Putting aside any comparisons or criticisms, it is fair to say that Final Battleground has in one sense, been a phenomenal success.
Nonetheless, as developers of this system, our journey has not been without significant and sometimes nigh impossible challenges.
As with most small development teams, our biggest struggle has always been the funding. The time and expertise needed to build the FBG Battle interface using Silverlight, whilst support a worldwide user-base of server admins and players and of course, manage and resolve the inevitable disputes and arguments between clans in the Battles has come at an absurdly high personal cost to all of us who’ve been involved.
So, we are now at a turning point where the future of FBG is in question. In order for Final Battleground to live on, there would need to be at least two experienced full time developers/ support staff to maintain the same standard of service both from a technical point of view and an administrative point of view. Further more, those developers would need to manage themselves, or you’ll need throw one more job in there for organising and managing the site as a whole. This is where funding is needed. This is not the kind of thing that can be sustained by community volunteers – it’s simply too big, too complex and too intricate.
One thing we’ve always tried to do is be as transparent as possible with our community and I hope that this post will at least provide enough detail for everyone to understand how hard we’ve tried to maintain the very highest standard of service for all of our usersand why, in spite of our efforts, the site may soon face closure.
At the time of writing this, Final Battleground has a whole new build ready for release with a flashy new animated front page, upgraded graphics, banner slots, new medals (like the Match MVP awards) and badges and so forth. Unfortunately, going live with this new build is too costly for us to complete as it would require ongoing support, inevitable bug fixes (which is standard for ANY new site release) followed by more development and more patches. Sorry guys – we’ve simply run out of cash.
Part of this new upgrade included a vastly reduced subscriber based payment option for Supporters, an increased Plink per Kill ratio and new player medals and awards associated with Battle performance. The cost was going to amount to £2.00 per month. The ‘Free’ Profiles and Clans would still remain in place but the functionality and data available to such users will be minimised.
With over 55,000 users, it would seem reasonable to expect that even a small percentage of that figure would be able to afford a minimal payment of this nature but some events defy logic and sense and it’s theoretically possible that the new release would not have enough subscribers to make any real or legitimate difference to the investors of the company. Of course, ever since we started building Final Battleground, we were always aware of the risks. Our biggest risk was that we would not be able to find a viable financial model to support Final Battleground for the years to come.
Some of you may be wondering why we don’t get the whole thing funded by ads and sponsors. It’s important to understand that we have always had an interest in Ads, sponsorship and external funding opportunities. It should be known that Final Battleground would not actually exist today if we had not already formed such partnerships with investors. Just understand that Banner Ads alone will absolutely not cover the costs of maintaining the FBG Service – it’s simply too big and too complex and the site does not pull the obscene amount of traffic that would be needed to generate the necessary ad revenue.
Yes, we’ve spoken with a range of potential investment parties including organisations which have, in different ways, been competitors to FBG, such as other companies that run Counter-Strike leagues, ladders and affiliated services and regrettably, our conversations have not led to anything concrete or productive. Some of those organisations may even feel a smug sense of satisfaction if FBG goes down, but that doesn’t really matter.
When it comes to selling a site/ product, company, in part or in whole, it’s important to remember that this site simply isn’t affordable to individual users and clans. If you do a lookup on the value of the Final Battleground domain and you’ll see that the value of the .com domain name alone is typically placed in the region of $10,000 to $12,000. Unfortunately, there isn’t some big, magic auction house in the sky for software development companies, and it’s difficult for potential investors to reach a fair assessment of what FBG is actually worth.
Now personally, I’ve spent a small fortune of my personal finance to help co-fund FBG and more man hours than I’d ever care to sacrifice in another project again. Has it been worth it for the experience alone? Absolutely – I have no regrets whatsoever. Will I be very sad if FBG is soon forced to close down? Definitely – Final Battleground has to me been as much of an emotional investment as a monetary one.
It would be fantastic to be approached by a legitimate new investment partner that could help prolong the FBG service, release the new build (written in c# and Microsoft Silverlight), revise the Server Plugin (written in C++) which would need to be compatible with Valves latest Orange box features, and of course, nurture a community response that would lead to several thousand subscribers signing up. Then the numbers would all start to make sense.
Even if a new investor DID get involved, would it ever come close to paying back to us the costs that we’ve personally endured in building it? Realistically, no – I don’t think so... but could Final Battleground still do well enough to sustain itself and grow into something bigger and better than ever? Yes, it’s possible. I just don’t want to build any sense of false hope from all of this because the fact is, if we we’re not contacted by a legitimate investor within the next three weeks, the Final Battleground site will be shutting down abruptly and the companies assets will likely be stripped and sold in components, which is mainly the code for the Plug In, website and battle system and of course the popular FinalBattleground.com domain itself, which will mean in no uncertain terms: the end of FBG.
Now, some of you have already noticed that we have stopped taking payment for Supporter Status, and you can rest assured that in the event that the site closes and you have any Supporter time still outstanding, you will be refunded for that outstanding Supporter time.
Regardless of what happens over the coming weeks, I just want to take this moment to thank all of you for helping grow Final Battleground to what it has become today. I know for a fact that FBG has immortalised itself in the hearts and minds of many gamers across the world and the FBG experience of competitive multiplayer Clan Gaming for World Domination will live forever in our memories.
If anyone wishes to contact me, be it to discuss a legitimate investment interest, express their natural disappointment or simply just to keep in touch on a personal level, you are more than welcome to do so, I can be reached at:
milesc@demonicgaming.com and I will do my best to respond to everyone in a timely manner.
Yours sincerely,
Miles aka D1gN1tY
Sad, I always liked fbg and all the kind of stats and medal for me the stathore.
Hope they can find a sponser and a few dedicated people who would keep the amazing work up as they made on fbg.
Show Posts
