So, we know that we’re getting season 4 and 5 before the xpac and paid class is released, and things seem to be hinting at 6 - 7 month seasons meaning the xpac and paid class won’t be released until 2027.
If that ends up being the case and MTX isn’t profitable how are they Aiming to sustain themselves?
For 2 reasons, the first is an explanation of how this situation even happens, the second is the thought-process I imagine behind it:
So the first reason is because EHG is utterly inept in terms of business sense. They got literally no clue on how to monetize ‘ethically’ and fast. Tons of avenues which can provide a upside for them without being seen as a detriment by the community and none are taken, polled for or even teased as a possibility.
The second is that they believe their capital suffices until that point without getting into the negative too much, likely being sustained by Krafton up to this point via contract without realizing that even the implementation of those classes is a pure hail-mary attempt with a low chance of substantial success.
That’s my thoughts on it.
What EHG likely wants to do now is to save their goodwill in terms of quality, with ‘proper’ releases for their next 2 Cycles, hence a stable quality people can trust on.
In my eyes they likely realized they stretched too thin and now they’re backpedaling to focus on a single aspect… which would’ve been fine before but it is too late now. They need to handle monetization and content quality both at the same time by now, otherwise their chances of success are extremely low.
No one actually knows that, everyone is just guessing based on the past (fair enough), but EHG is not a big studio so they have struggled to keep pace with content releases before Krafton.
They are hiring and expanding now, with Krafton’s investment so I would expect you will see a ramp up in production after season 4 and we might actually get all 3 releases (4, 5 and Xpac) in 2026.
It takes time to hire the “right” people and get them incorporated and the Krafton acquisition probably slowed down things for a time, before they could speed up again. That’s probably why there is such a large gap between Season 3 and 4. They are also adjusting their release timeline to stay away from PoE releases, which is totally the right move.
We have to wait and see, but all this negativity towards EHG is getting old. I will just switch to PoE2 and even some D4 while I wait for Last Epoch season 4. No worries here, time will pass and we will be playing Season 4 soon enough, until then lets let them cook.
Neither of which actually answers Beardus’ question, that being “if LE is currently not profitable, how will they be able to sustain themselves in the 1-2 years before the paid class comes out?”
To actually answer his question, I’d imagine that what cash they do get from mtx/suporter packs will help, but ultimately they’re chewing through their cash reserves & I would assume that the sale to Krafton included either a cash injection or some form of loan/debt restructure.
This is an answer to the question, aka, their current cash reserves & cash from Krafton/external debt. The preceding paragraph was just you having a go at EHG & armchair dev/business management-ing. 
Yup.
To be fair, they also hired and expanded heavily after the 1.0 launch and it didn’t help then, with 1.2 requiring over 9 months.
One might even argue that we are in the current situation because of this expanding without the required adjustment to internal workflows (mostly due to their inexperience manging a large studio), leading to higher expenses but not a very noticeable output (in terms of timing alone, mind you).
To be even moar fairerer, that was when they changed their minds on what they wanted to have in 1.2.
Or at least without having sufficient cashflow to support the increased workforce.
Would argue it’s both.
They’re not making a profit which makes me facepalm that EHG even expanded to such a degree despite not making the revenue to even sustain it.
And they’re also plainly spoken quite bad comparatively to other companies in their communication channels and their content pipeline still.
Focus should’ve been put on both communication and content before release already… and that can only be acquired if you don’t fire up a inferno underneath your own ass forcing you to act rushed because you’ve overexpanded until you’re going bancrupt.
Feels a bit like a downwards spiral to me.
IMO, EHG had to release Last Epoch before it was ready because they were running out of money - they were making content too slowly due to having few people and poorly developed processes.
With release, they got a cash injection, which they promptly used to get more people… But they were in a hurry (the community was pressuring them, both for how unfinished the game was and for expecting seasonal updates), so their internal processes were still inefficient. Thus, throwing more people at their issues only made them worse.
More people meant more expenses, so they had to make more money, which meant they were trying to build stuff faster… And not really managing to do so. So they tried (and are still trying) to get even more people, and thus increasing their expenses even more. I’m not sure that’s going to work as well as they think it will.
Yep, because it absolutely is! 
And there were so many places where it could’ve been stopped spiraling. But EHG always did ‘one step too little’.
As you say… EHG was running out of money, hence release rush.
Why where they running out of money? Because they squandered a ton of it by reworking early game and some mechanics repeatedly rather then first finishing their product and then revamping stuff properly.
Make base → Finetune base → Expand with solid base.
That was the first step into hell basically.
Then the hiring instead of optimizing.
Then the rush instead of optimizing.
And yes:
It’s closing very much to a 100% fail-chance. It’s not a perfect 100% but the leftovers are so miniscule you gan generalize it without issue.
Profit is not the same as cash flow. As long as you have sufficient cash flowing in to your bank you can pay your bills as they’re due. This is why startups have multiple funding rounds to keep the cash flowing in.
You should totally start your own business advice company rather than whatever you do at the moment (I want to say something woodworking for some reason).
I don’t know, it is quite a crowded professional field.
I mean, just in the last two weeks or so, we’ve had at least a dozen highly qualified and competent business advisers post on these forums…
Yeah… so?
This is not astartup anymore.
This is not a tech-company to sell a patent.
They’re also not in the position of a megacorp which can play the long game - and likely mess it up like so many do - in a try to get another major market share of a sector.
They were a indie company - now they’re actually megacorp part after all - and hence they gotta work inside the lines of a indie company. No overextension, no messy ‘10 year plans’ which never realizes as the whole sector obviously changes entirely by the time you reach that and so on.
They gotta make a profit instead of making a deficit. Simple as that. The only cash flow was majorly shelf-price sales and everything else beyond that failed.
Hence the live-service aspect? Failed.
Would’ve been a fantastic SP game though! It isn’t though… is it?
It’s a fairly important distinction.
Never said they were, it was an example of how cash & having it is not the same as making a profit.
Never said they were.
No, as I mentioned. Making a profit is the best way of keeping the spice cash flowing, but it’s not the only way.
That’s likely not true, as they certainly seem to be acting like they either received a bunch of cash from Krafton or had a line of credit extended (also, not quite the same).
So I can’t play LE offline only? Or online but not be forced to play with other people? Curious.
Let’s take it from the top there…
Obviously EHG has money still to pay for necessities, otherwise they would already be bancrupt.
What you’re saying is not even guaranteed though. Did they get some money from Krafton in any form? Did Krafton take over some costs in any form yet? Who knows! We don’t.
Does EHG even pay all their workers? Who knows! We don’t.
We can act from a basis at least though.
Hence:
Yes, and how long do you think any company accepts it not being profit?
With nigh guarantee there’s a time-based stipulation in the takeover for how long EHG can stay free of interference, based on results.
And also, it was included that they’ve gottan some form of money or security to keep on working… obviously so as that was the reason for selling… continued function rather then bancrupty… ‘no shit Sherlock’ hence.
If fluid funds or credit is of no measure here… but it’s already been said.
So why are you acting like I didn’t?
Is Last Epoch a live-service game or not?
With the answer of that question I rest my case for my argument there cause in this specific case it’s literally all that’s needed. Ongoing costs of live-service > SP game, that’s the basis here. That the functionality is also there doesn’t matter in this example for a change.
What part of “what I said” isn’t guaranteed? The bit about how profit isn’t the same as cash/cashflow? The bit about how they appear to be acting like they either received a bunch of cash from Krafton or received a line of credit? I’m not sure how your response relates to any of what I said.
If you’re going down to that level of tin-foil-hattery, I’m not sure there’s any point in talking to you. One might then wonder if EHG has a coding sweatshop in the Philippines or somewhere, or that they get all of their code from the lizard people.
This one, that they got one.
Which is to be expected that they got one though, otherwise they couldn’t properly work on (risk of bancrupty after all).
Still not guaranteed.
And also the notion from your side which I stated the ‘No shit Sherlock’ one.
Maybe take the whole context then.
Here ya go, to put it in reference.
You can, but you cant reverse updates you dont like, like say Terraria, project zomboid, or minecraft.
Games that get lifelong updates, but also allow you to version select so you can play at whatever point in time you wish.
Last epoch also is a grey area with modding, if this was truly a rich single player experience modding and version selection tools would be important.
But its not, so while its cool they offer a “offline” game, it does not mean the game is designed around said experience.
To be fair, there’s not much difference between them. LE doesn’t give you versions, but they could. And while Terraria and Minecraft may provide you with versions (not sure if they do, but I trust they do if you included them in your example) that is a very very very small minority of games.
Most of them don’t give you versions, even for SP games, and your only option for it is ilegal downloads (which is also an option for LE).
There isn’t much grey area. Modding isn’t allowed under ToS, but can’t be policed for offline so you’re basically free to use them.
Most SP games don’t actually provide you with modding support and version selection tools either. Even when they’re popular with the modding community.
So both examples you provided are actually only available for a very very very very small percentage of actual SP games. It’s not a good argument for the validity of LE as a SP game.
But why? It’s like something a flat earther or intelligent designer/young earth creationist puts in to make them seem less crazy & more appealing to normal people.
Do you really think that EHG aren’t paying their employees (which would be called slavery in some parts of the world)? If not, why say it as an argument?