Originally posted by Metentso

Originally posted by Robokapp

they said 1.5mil didnt they?

They said 500.000 but this is about what *we* think, not them.

I'l go with the experts who have been working in the games industry far longer than I have, oh yes I don't work in the industry I just play them. If they say 500k to break even then abything over that means profit and a success.

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by vesavius

/snipped both yours and mine because... well, I really CBA to argue with you right now, despite your continous attempts at flaming a response from me.

I couldn't agree more, SWTOR is its own animal, comparisons with WoW and SWG are getting tiresome.

Then stop doing it.

Originally posted by Metentso

Originally posted by Robokapp

they said 1.5mil didnt they?

They said 500.000 but this is about what *we* think, not them.

 In that case, I don't have access to the numbers they do therefore I will use their own estimate of 500K.

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Originally posted by Icewhite

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Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

It's kind of an odd, funny thing to say, because if WoW would be released now, according to your criteria it would 'lack longterm retention in its design' too. Yet history has shown that with its (themepark) design it managed to pull in and retain 10 million+ people for many years.
Kind of contradicting, don't you think?

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If WoW released today, it would be declared a failure within an hour.  Not accurately, of course, but that's just how this forum works.

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All I know is that swtor seems to have more launch content than any mmo ive seen, ever. I see a lot of people saying that a true indication of subs will be at the 6 month mark. I think bioware kind of knows this too by looking at the amount of content they are launching the game with. From the looks of it, you could probably play this game casually for 4-6 months and barely have any repeat content if any. At that point, most casual players will continue playing even with repeat content after 6 months simply because that becomes a significant time investment in their eyes. Of course this is all assumption but then again look at this thread heh.

Originally posted by vesavius

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by vesavius

/snipped both yours and mine because... well, I really CBA to argue with you right now, despite your continous attempts at flaming a response from me.

I couldn't agree more, SWTOR is its own animal, comparisons with WoW and SWG are getting tiresome.

Then stop doing it.

Doesn't really help, a lot of other people will keep doing it.

Besides, you were only mentioning it because you didn't have a good counter towards the arguments I kept making, and this annoyed you. Having trouble accepting reasonable arguments that put a sensible or positive light on SWTOR's situation, a game you dislike, right?

Originally posted by Foomerang

All I know is that swtor seems to have more launch content than any mmo ive seen, ever. I see a lot of people saying that a true indication of subs will be at the 6 month mark. I think bioware kind of knows this too by looking at the amount of content they are launching the game with. From the looks of it, you could probably play this game casually for 4-6 months and barely have any repeat content if any. At that point, most casual players will continue playing even with repeat content after 6 months simply because that becomes a significant time investment in their eyes. Of course this is all assumption but then again look at this thread heh.

This was kind of like how I regard it as well, although a lot depends also on the amount and variety of endgame content.

Originally posted by Foomerang

All I know is that swtor seems to have more launch content than any mmo ive seen, ever. I see a lot of people saying that a true indication of subs will be at the 6 month mark. I think bioware kind of knows this too by looking at the amount of content they are launching the game with. From the looks of it, you could probably play this game casually for 4-6 months and barely have any repeat content if any. At that point, most casual players will continue playing even with repeat content after 6 months simply because that becomes a significant time investment in their eyes. Of course this is all assumption but then again look at this thread heh.

# of flash point and # of raids is all I really give a damn about.

I will consider it a successful game if it has 500k subs the first month.

I will consider it a successful MMO if it only has 100k subs the first month, but grows and by the end of the year has a million or something. Most modern MMOs have a large start, but decline, so having the opposite would be great.

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by vesavius

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick
{mod edit}

{mod edit}

You are right though, this has been dragged far too off topic. Enough. Just stick me on ignore and I will do the same with you.

Originally posted by Metentso

Originally posted by fionanshrek

Originally posted by Aluvius

Originally posted by Metentso

Originally posted by Aluvius

Pointless thread is pointless.  No matter what happens people will move the goalposts around to  fit their own beliefs .. hell its happened already within just 2 pages of this thread.  It has to be profitable, no it has to have 500k subs, no it has to have 300k at 6 months, no it has to have 1.5 million at release, etc, etc.  No one's criteria will satisfy someone else's, hell you're dealing with forum posters that repeatedly say the most profitable game, Rift, released in years is somehow a failure.   Good luck.

That's what a forum is for, right? To express our beliefs.

 Of course and its my belief that trying to mix facts with belief is pointless.  This isn't just another random subjective thread on whether or not you want SWTOR to be your girlfriend (yes, no, maybe).   No, this is another random subjective thread on how well IN EXACT NUMBERS you think SWTOR will need to be to turn a profit.  

I tried to point out that its a fools' errand since you are asking people with no actual information but with demonstrably subjective opinions on the subject.   So garbage in equals garbage out or paraphrasing former Sen. Moynihan, everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but not their own facts.

Whatever, its not like someone won't post an identical thread here in 2 days anyway.

 Haha very true.  And for anyone who really wants to know an EA or BW executive has already stated what the company thinks if I'm not mistaken he said they didn't need to break a million to be profitable (don't quote me on it) but the info is out there we have no reason to speculate about an issue that the company has addressed.

I think you guys are not getting the point of this thread. Although discussion about profit might be related, it's more about what everyone thinks, in their opinion, what should be the minimum subscriptions to not consider SWTOR a failure. An MMO can be profitable and still be considered a failure by the community.

 I guess I don't get the point, I guess I can understand discussion for the sake of discussion but have a hard time seeing why fanbois (like myself) or trolls like many of the other people who would respond would be relevant when the question being asked has been discussed by the people closest to the project.

I just don't see how anyone could know a company exec said 500k yet take the word of a random forum poster even the word of the many people here who seem to be a bit more informed about business or this game.

I can name a number of posters on this site who seem to often post with a very open mind and even those peoples opinions would be pointless when an exec has stated what they think the number needs to be.

This is like asking the janitor at the hospital if your grandma is going to be alright when the doctor is standing right next to you.

And if this is based on the last sentence you posted it's even more pointless we all know this forum is full of traditionalists who call everything not made in their vision a failure.  I mean if Blizz didn't scream the sub numbers for WOW from the rooftops and you only knew about the game from this site you would think it is a dead/dying game that hasn't made a lasting impression on the genre.

{mod edit}

Originally posted by fionanshrek

I just don't see how anyone could know a company exec said 500k yet take the word of a random forum poster even the word of the many people here who seem to be a bit more informed about business or this game.

I don't know if the OP intended it like that, but the question could be interesting to see if there's a large discrepancy between what's considered 'fail' in a financial or business kind of view, and what's considered 'fail' in the perception of (some) MMO gamer groups.

After all, to many, all MMO's after Wow are considered 'fail', while LotrO has been quite profitable and also regarded favorably and positively by many MMO gamers, and where as Aion still has at least over 1 million players worldwide with 200 to 250 million dollar yearly revenues.

My guess is that the people who dislike themepark MMO's will be a lot higher in their estimation of subs that they wouldn't find 'fail', after all, a lot of them have even never fully accepted WoW's success, let alone that of any other MMO that came after it.

Originally posted by Drekker17

I will consider it a successful game if it has 500k subs the first month.

I will consider it a successful MMO if it only has 100k subs the first month, but grows and by the end of the year has a million or something. Most modern MMOs have a large start, but decline, so having the opposite would be great.

I have no doubt whatsoever that it will sell far in excess of 500k boxes at launch,so imo it will be a massive success then.

I don't see anything from my personal experience that will buck the trend of other modern MMOs after that though.

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by Aluvius

I tried to point out that its a fools' errand since you are asking people with no actual information but with demonstrably subjective opinions on the subject.   So garbage in equals garbage out or paraphrasing former Sen. Moynihan, everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but not their own facts.

Whatever, its not like someone won't post an identical thread here in 2 days anyway.

That's one hell of a quote

 

Originally posted by Distopia

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Anything less than $1.5 million subscribers after 6 months will not be a success.  Not when you consider how much money and time has been spent on this MMO.

Hogwash, they've basically said if they have 1 mil, they'd be tickled pink. Which says to me ROI is somewhere between 500k to 1 mil. I'd find it highly unlikely they expect full on rollover to profit in six months. However I wouldn't be surprised if they did see just that, if not sooner.

Even more, they said that with 500k subs they'd already be profitable although not satisfied.

Yes and we always take what a company spokesman releases as a public statement at face value, as the absolute truth...as they would never carefully craft such messages to suit some purpose driven Agenda?

C'mon Maverick, I know you are a TOR fanboy...but you are smarter then that.

Heck, look at the statement itself....500K....over what TERM?  6 months, 1 year, 20 years, 250 years? They didn't say did they? Furthermore, what exactly did he mean by "proffitable", is that  revenues exceed current operating expenses, is that revenues exceed current operating expenses AND we've made our development costs back?  is it that AND we have made enough to reinvest our target capital back in to fund future development.

Thing is when guys make statements like these, they are so intentionaly vague that you might as well use a ouija board to try and interpret them. This is not picking on EA/Bioware...most companies work like that. They release intentionaly vague statements crafted for a specific purpose. My guess is with all the public speculation about huge budgets, they were worried that potential investors/stockholders were going to get nervous about what the title needed to achieve in order to make it proffitable....and the wanted to release a statement designed to ease those fears.

Originally posted by GrumpyMel2

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by Aluvius

I tried to point out that its a fools' errand since you are asking people with no actual information but with demonstrably subjective opinions on the subject.   So garbage in equals garbage out or paraphrasing former Sen. Moynihan, everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but not their own facts.

Whatever, its not like someone won't post an identical thread here in 2 days anyway.

That's one hell of a quote

 

Originally posted by Distopia

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Anything less than $1.5 million subscribers after 6 months will not be a success.  Not when you consider how much money and time has been spent on this MMO.

Hogwash, they've basically said if they have 1 mil, they'd be tickled pink. Which says to me ROI is somewhere between 500k to 1 mil. I'd find it highly unlikely they expect full on rollover to profit in six months. However I wouldn't be surprised if they did see just that, if not sooner.

Even more, they said that with 500k subs they'd already be profitable although not satisfied.

Yes and we always take what a company spokesman releases as a public statement at face value, as the absolute truth...as they would never carefully craft such messages to suit some purpose driven Agenda?

C'mon Maverick, I know you are a TOR fanboy...but you are smarter then that.

Heck, look at the statement itself....500K....over what TERM?  6 months, 1 year, 20 years, 250 years? They didn't say did they? Furthermore, what exactly did he mean by "proffitable", is that  revenues exceed current operating expenses, is that revenues exceed current operating expenses AND we've made our development costs back?  is it that AND we have made enough to reinvest our target capital back in to fund future development.

Thing is when guys make statements like these, they are so intentionaly vague that you might as well use a ouija board to try and interpret them. This is not picking on EA/Bioware...most companies work like that. They release intentionaly vague statements crafted for a specific purpose. My guess is with all the public speculation about huge budgets, they were worried that potential investors/stockholders were going to get nervous about what the title needed to achieve in order to make it proffitable....and the wanted to release a statement designed to ease those fears.

 Being intentionally vague and outright lying aren't the same thing, the truth is yes people who are skeptical will always find a "yeah but".

Me I don't work that way I don't assume everytime an exec speaks that I need to be skeptical of what he is saying simply because he is ommiting some things and even more I afford everyone the same amount of trust until they prove to me a reason to not trust what they say.

A company saying there game is going to be fun is subjective numbers aren't.  If TOR launches and languishes around 500k subs for a year and then closes then I have a reason to brand the person who made the statement a liar why would it possibly matter if he meant they needed to have that number of subs for how many years other than fishing for a reason to disbelieve?

Originally posted by GrumpyMel2

Yes and we always take what a company spokesman releases as a public statement at face value, as the absolute truth...as they would never carefully craft such messages to suit some purpose driven Agenda?

C'mon Maverick, I know you are a TOR fanboy...but you are smarter then that.

Lol, I keep saying that I'm looking forward more to a GW2 and TSW with SWTOR 3rd place, only I've found the SWTOR discussions far more entertaining on these forums bc of the large amount of fallacies and misinformation used by some. So, call me SWTOR fanboi all you like (although it'd be more correct that I'm a 'fanboi' of debating with themepark/SWTOR haters and trolls ) but that doesn't change the fact that to me it makes more sense to pay more attention to what the people who're making the game are saying in a corporate conference meeting with shareholders/investors than what a random dude is saying on a forum

Heck, look at the statement itself....500K....over what TERM?  6 months, 1 year, 20 years, 250 years? They didn't say did they? Furthermore, what exactly did he mean by "proffitable", is that  revenues exceed current operating expenses, is that revenues exceed current operating expenses AND we've made our development costs back?  is it that AND we have made enough to reinvest our target capital back in to fund future development.

Thing is, you have little or even less proof in making your claim that what they're saying isn't true.

Besides, there's something to be gleaned from the revenues other companies made and analysts write.

Like how much revenues MMO companies made with their launch sales, or how much revenues 500k subs would amount to when collected over a year, and then subtracting operational costs. 1.5 million+ sales and 500k subs for a year can go a very long way.

And this is what the forumers consider a failure for SWTOR, if my math is correct:

52%  less than 1.000.000 subs.

86,7% less than 500.000 subs.

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

Originally posted by GrumpyMel2

Yes and we always take what a company spokesman releases as a public statement at face value, as the absolute truth...as they would never carefully craft such messages to suit some purpose driven Agenda?

C'mon Maverick, I know you are a TOR fanboy...but you are smarter then that.

Lol, I keep saying that I'm looking forward more to a GW2 and TSW with SWTOR 3rd place, only I've found the SWTOR discussions far more entertaining on these forums bc of the large amount of fallacies and misinformation used by some. So, call me SWTOR fanboi all you like (although it'd be more correct that I'm a 'fanboi' of debating with themepark/SWTOR haters and trolls ) but that doesn't change the fact that to me it makes more sense to pay more attention to what the people who're making the game are saying in a corporate conference meeting with shareholders/investors than what a random dude is saying on a forum

Heck, look at the statement itself....500K....over what TERM?  6 months, 1 year, 20 years, 250 years? They didn't say did they? Furthermore, what exactly did he mean by "proffitable", is that  revenues exceed current operating expenses, is that revenues exceed current operating expenses AND we've made our development costs back?  is it that AND we have made enough to reinvest our target capital back in to fund future development.

Thing is, you have little or even less proof in making your claim that what they're saying isn't true.

Besides, there's something to be gleaned from the revenues other companies made and analysts write.

Like how much revenues MMO companies made with their launch sales, or how much revenues 500k subs would amount to when collected over a year, and then subtracting operational costs. 1.5 million+ sales and 500k subs for a year can go a very long way.

No which is exactly why my first point in the first post I made in this thread was that no one sitting outside EA/Bioware's CFO office (or has access to their financials) has the first clue about what TOR needs to do financialy to justify it's investment.

BTW, the ONLY quote, I have ever seen by someone that did have access to the financials and wasn't working for EA/Bioware, was from an outside analyst working for an instutional investment firm and he stated that TOR would need at least 1 million subs for a sustained term to break even with the investment.....but even he didn't go into any great detail.

Yes, I have no evidence that the EA exec isn't misrepresenting the situation...anymore then I have evidence that any given used car salesman is going to be glossing over the shortcomings of the vehicles he is trying to sell me. However, I DO understand very well how the corporate world tends to work.

That doesn't make them evil.....but when corporate officers issue public statements like that....it's almost always carefully crafted/irchestrated to achieve a specific agenda.....and that agenda doesn't neccesarly have any relation to presenting the public an accurate picture of the situation. That's why a wise person takes what they say with a grain of salt.....just like you would with some random guy posting on a forum...who's motivations you also don't really know.

Heh, it's all speculation anyway, the whole thread, but I'm going with what I personally find the most believable arguments that kind of make the most sense to me, and from all those together I build my guess on

4 millions will be playing 2 weeks after the lunch. In next 3 months that number will slowly grow to over 6 mil.

There is difference between surving and meeting expectations (their expectations). I'm pretty sure they can survive at about half milion subs, but to be at half milion subs - u dont buy license for such huge franchise as is Star Wars and you u dont invest so much money as they did. Star Trek and WAR are huge franchises that totaly failed to keep their fans to play these games, thats why they failed, even though they stil survive and probably make some money.

Subs below milion after first few months, will be internaly considered failure, i'm pretty sure.

Originally posted by Malevil

There is difference between surving and meeting expectations (their expectations). I'm pretty sure they can survive at about half milion subs, but to be at half milion subs - u dont buy license for such huge franchise as is Star Wars and you u dont invest so much money as they did. Star Trek and WAR are huge franchises that totaly failed to keep their fans to play these games, thats why they failed, even though they stil survive and probably make some money.

Subs below milion after first few months, will be internaly considered failure, i'm pretty sure.

I very much agree.

500.000 - we screwed but we can survive and hopefully improve.

700.000 - we failed a bit.

1.000.000 - we did ok.