My Predictions For 2024

One thing I haven't done in several years is make a predictions post for the following year. I'm going to try to come up with something coherent covering 2024. I don't know a lot of games well, but after 14 years I might know what CCP is thinking for the year ahead. Plus I have some ideas about other games in the genre as well as companies I follow. Let's see how big a fool I can make of myself.

EVE Online - If any game gives me hope for optimism in 2024, it is the one developed in the northernmost capital city on Earth. As a sign of confidence, my first prediction is that a volcano will not destroy CCP's new Reykjavik studios.

The next prediction involves low security space. The developers spent the last 18 months or so trying to revive gameplay in the long neglected security band in the game. With continued emphasis in the next two expansions, low sec will record more player ships killed than in null sec in 2024. No, I'm not predicting something never before seen. During the Golden Era of Low Sec, players suffered more ship losses in low sec from 2013-2015. I think CCP can allow low sec residents the crown once every 9 years or so.

Ships. I don't make a secret of my belief that Project Awakening is just EVE migrated to a new set of servers to do Web 3.0 things. Which means CCP needs to upgrade EVE to advance Hilmar's blockchain dreams. As such, I predict the developers will spend 2024 filling out the missing ship classes in the pirate factions. Rejoice, as I believe we will receive 10 ships in 2024. The ship classes and factions are:

• Angel Cartel: Dreadnought, Carrier
• Blood Raiders: Destroyer, Battlecruiser
• Sansha's Nation: Destroyer, Battlecruiser, Dreadnought, Titan
• Serpentis Corp: Destroyer, Battlecruiser

Honestly, I would love to see CCP add command ships and marauders to the Triglavian ship line, but I don't think the story will progress in that direction in 2024.

EVE: Vanguard - Since the roadmap only runs through June, I'll predict that CCP does not run test sessions continuously through the rest of the year. Maybe the number comes up to two weekends per month. On the business side, I'll predict that not only will the C-Suite at Pearl Abyss bring up the FPS portion of EVE, but one of the investor analysts will ask about the progress also. Extra points if an analyst refers directly to Vanguard.

Project Awakening - I think 2024 will continue the sound of silence emanating from London and Reykjavik about the web 3/blockchain game. We might hear some solid news in November, either right before or right after Pearl Abyss' third quarter earnings call. But I'm predicting CCP is waiting to release news until Fanfest 2025 in the first week of May. 

EVE: Echoes - I don't really have a lot of information on CCP's first mobile game. Also, as the financial information isn't typically available until April or May each year, I'm not sure how timely the results will come in. I do predict NetEase will wind up paying out $8 million in both 2023 and 2024.

EVE: Galaxy Quest - I'm going to go out on a limb and predict the game does not see a world-wide release in 2024. Not because CCP Shanghai runs into major problems. No, the other CCP (Chinese Communist Party) will do something to gum up the works. I don't know if CCP would hold off on the release until 2025, but I can see a release in the rest of the world in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Crowd Control Productions - I think CCP will have a so-so year in 2024. Game development wise, the Icelandic developer will have a good year but will not see the fruits of the work financially until 2025. I expect revenue for the EVE IP shown in the quarterly earnings calls to remain within +/- 2% of 2023 levels.

Black Desert Online - I hate to say this, but I don't think Pearl Abyss' next expansion will succeed as well as the Land of the Morning Light expansion content released in the second half of last year. I also think our overlords in Anyang intend to focus on Pearl Abyss' core Korean audience. I did cheat a little and see the next expansion for BDO is titled Land of the Morning Light: Seoul. 

Crimson Desert - Crimson Desert is now a game I just want to see completed and shipped. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict 2024 is not the year. Watch for Pearl Abyss to announce a release date of the first half of 2025 sometime in November. Also, I see pre-orders for the game going on sale in either November or December of 2024.

Pearl Abyss - December 2024 will mark the 10th anniversary of the launch of Black Desert Online's open beta in Asia. That alone would indicated reduced revenues. Perhaps pre-order sales of Crimson Desert can help hold back the financial tide. But I also predict Black Desert Mobile will continue to decline. I'll predict Pearly Abyss will see revenues decline by 10% in 2024 with the revenue from the Black Desert intellectual property declining by 12-15%. I also predict the company will continue to reduce employee headcount through attrition instead of announcing a layoff.

Star Citizen - All the goodwill built up from CitizenCon will dissipate by the middle of the year as players discover CIG over promised again. I think the developers will add enough gameplay and actual improvements to the game to keep the faithful satisfied. But server meshing will not be close to a finished system and the economy once again will get short shrift. 

For what it's worth, I think player expectations for server meshing are too high. CIG just finished proving the concept about two weeks before CitizenCon. Thinking the developers were almost finished with the tech is unrealistic.

Squadron 42 - While Chris Roberts declared his studio's single player game "feature complete", he didn't announce a date. I predict he finally releases a realistic date at CitizenCon in October. While I can see a 2024 holiday season release occur, I predict the announced release date will be in the first half of 2025. Expect a box price of $70 with a collector's edition on sale for $150-$200.

Cloud Imperium Games - As of the time I write this post, CIG has not released its financial information for 2022. As such, my outlook is probably a little different than if CIG released financial information like a regular game company. Here are three financial predictions for Cloud Imperium Games that I think aren't totally silly.

1. Cash shop revenue will hit $123.5 million. In 2023 I thought CIG would see an increase of 10-12% on the revenue displayed by the "pledge counter". Instead, the figure will probably only increase by 3.5%, or $4 million. I'm predicting a 5% increase in sales for 2024.

2. Cloud Imperium Games will surpass Pearl Abyss in size by employee headcount sometime in 2024. I think CIG possibly is larger now, but the information coming out of Manchester is a bit hard to access.

3. CIG will conduct a third round of venture capital funding sometime in 2024. As in point two above, the round may have already occurred and the world is just waiting to find out the event happened.

Final Fantasy XIV - Sometimes bad predictions turn into good ones. Expect a lot of doom and gloom to come out of the launch of the Dawntrail expansion this summer. Numbers will show the number of new users is down from the previous two expansions, Shadowbringers and Endwalker. Part of the decline will come from Microsoft Blizzard launching both the next World of Warcraft retail expansion, The War Within, as well as Cataclysm Classic around the same time as the FFXIV expansion.

However, Dawntrail will receive high marks because the login servers will handle launch day and launch week traffic much better than for Endwalker. The expansion will also receive high marks for the graphics upgrade, particularly among players on XBox consoles. 

Two last predictions concerning housing. Old Sharlayan will not host a new residential area. That honor will go to Radz-at-Han. The other prediction is that the new "Island Sanctuary"-type content in Dawntrail will come a lot closer to serving as player housing than did island sanctuary. I'm just not sure how close.

Those are my predictions for 2024 in the little corner of video games I cover. I'll probably come back next December to find out how hilariously wrong I was. But I thought I'd write a little something fun for the end of the year.