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Originally posted by Antarious

 
Um that is really just not even a realistic example.
 
When I go to a medical professional and they tell me I have cancer and the next says the same etc etc etc  

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When something is unknown, it means it's unknown and you can only GUESS at what it is until time passes. Cancer isn't an unknown.

Likewise, TOR is an unknown but there isn't ONE analyst who says it's going to bomb. Or not do well. Or not be profitable.

This is the hole in your theory. You can ALWAYS find one doctor who says for whatever reason "I don't think you have cancer.. those 99% of other doctors are wrong" and he MAY be right.

But here, you don't have one saying that about TOR. That's where your argument falls straight through the floor.

Originally posted by Grahor

First of all, 250k subscribers to offset server costs? Either those servers are made of pure gold or management for that part of the operation defecates into pure gold bowls.

 

Secondly, no chance in hell SWTOR will have 1.5 mil permanent subscribers 6 month down the road. 600k - likely, which will make it financially successful, still.

 

This is, of course, just a pathetic opinion of a pathetic citizen, but we'll see who's right.

SWTOR will have WAY more subs that 600K after 6 months - it's a better MMO than any I've played in the last 5 years and - it's Star Wars! In fact - believe they'll have MORE that 1.5 mil permanent subs at the 6 month mark.

Originally posted by jdnewell

I think the game will be profitable for sure.

But all these reports and what not mean nothing IMO. The masses of MMO players are a fickle bunch. Some "analyst" who probably does not even play MMOs cant possible predict sub numbers with any accuracy.

In any case it will be interesing to follow in the coming months when I am having slow days at work. Like today - where R U 5pm?-

I beg to disagree. Market research and forecasting is done for any market and gaming is no exception. The only difference is that most gamers think that those "evil business people" don't "understand" them. Marketing is my major and we try to understand consumers all the time. Everything we do is with our customers in mind.

But then again many people on these boards don't even know the meaning of a public company.

Originally posted by fivoroth

Originally posted by jdnewell

I think the game will be profitable for sure.

But all these reports and what not mean nothing IMO. The masses of MMO players are a fickle bunch. Some "analyst" who probably does not even play MMOs cant possible predict sub numbers with any accuracy.

In any case it will be interesing to follow in the coming months when I am having slow days at work. Like today - where R U 5pm?-

I beg to disagree. Market research and forecasting is done for any market and gaming is no exception. The only difference is that most gamers think that those "evil business people" don't "understand" them. Marketing is my major and we try to understand consumers all the time. Everything we do is with our customers in mind.

But then again many people on these boards don't even know the meaning of a public company.

Market research isn't a hard science. This is a theory at best and a wild guess at worst. Then again so is what Kotick says, with a healthy dose of self interested spin on the side. I'm quite sure market researchers predicted Warhammer and AoC would be huge successes too. I think TOR will do quite well but I won't try to elevate that above the level of personal opinon.

Originally posted by fivoroth

Originally posted by jdnewell

I think the game will be profitable for sure.

But all these reports and what not mean nothing IMO. The masses of MMO players are a fickle bunch. Some "analyst" who probably does not even play MMOs cant possible predict sub numbers with any accuracy.

In any case it will be interesing to follow in the coming months when I am having slow days at work. Like today - where R U 5pm?-

I beg to disagree. Market research and forecasting is done for any market and gaming is no exception. The only difference is that most gamers think that those "evil business people" don't "understand" them. Marketing is my major and we try to understand consumers all the time. Everything we do is with our customers in mind.

But then again many people on these boards don't even know the meaning of a public company.

Oh I fully understand how valuable marketing and market research can be for companies. And I even fully understand what a public company is =)

There are "evil business people" just like there are "evil" everythings. But overall business people are generally just that, business people. And while I dont have a marketing degree assuming most gamers are ignorant of marketing & analyst ploys to meet agendas is in itself ignorant.

Not saying that is what this analyst is doing. I personally just dont put alot of faith in those numbers. Just my personal opinion tho.

Sorry if that came across as a bit confrontational, was not meant to be =) I sometimes have a hard time wording text that comes across as such when not intended to be.

My spelling and coherent thought process may not be up to speed this early.... hope that made sense..... need... more... coffee.....

In 2004 two big games were coming out. I had my eye on Everquest 2 being a huge I mean mega fan of the original one I was all set. I had played Diablo and saw this other game people were talking about. I took a gander at the screenshots and sort of cringed ...my god I thought those colors are garish to say the least and I completely dismissed the game.

Then Everquest 2 came out and I did not really like it hello shared debt anyone ? Single worst MMORPG concept ever. So having no choice I decided to go look at WoW again. I bought the game and logged in and tried out a human and was quickly bored . I thought  okay one other toon and rolled a night elf. I was completely hooked from the moment I stepped into Teldrassil. The colors that previously were puke worthy suddenly all fit and the whole world just came together and I met people made friends and spent a couple of years entertained. I rolled an orc and PvP something I never tried completely took over my life.

I went back to Everquest 2 later on and in fact I do love that game a lot and in a lot of ways the game has a lot more going for it than WoW but if you asked me in 2004 what I thought WoW's chances were I would have never thought even a fraction of its success capable. You cannot based on what you feel about a game predict what a whole genaration of gamers are going to do. Will SWTOR succeed ? I think so but what do I know .

I'm saying this as a guy who's done market analysis for high tech (although not for games specifically):

Three million subs seems rather optimistic by June, though certainly not impossible. Even if Bioware was selling "generic sci fi game," they'd do well because they have a legion of fans. The Mass Effect series has sold 7 million copies. Add the Star Wars name and you're going to attract huge numbers. What's working against them is the fact that not a lot of people like to invest in a subscription game much past the 2-3 month mark. That's been true of every MMO besides WOW. Even WOW struggles to keep 3 million subscribers in the Western market - most of their vaunted numbers come from Asia.

Past the six months mark, it's really a crap shoot. Look at 2012 holiday season. You'll probably have the next WOW expansion, plus excellent non-subscription online games like Diablo 3 and Guild wars 2. If Bioware is slow on updating content, they could very well be hurting in December. Heck, Mass Effect 3 could easily cannibalize the Bioware fans who feel TOR is no longer worth the monthly fee.  Trying to make big predictions more than six months out is like a meteorologist trying to exactly predict the weather a year out.

If there was anyone that could accurately and consistently predict which products would be successful and to what degree, then they would be a multi-billionaire by virtue of stock investments.

But the reality is that no one can do this.  Anything an analyst "predicts" is a guess.  An educated guess maybe, but still a guess.  People get paid tons of money a year to predict which stocks will be the most profitable, but they typically don't earn much more of a return than the market in general.

Originally posted by Precusor

Michael Pachter has been wrong so many times.

Did he go into detail what the 'Hook' will be for TOR?

By June, many people will be 'burned out' on the story -- as we are already seeing beta testers mention they are burned out simply from beta.

Almost every MMO sells a lot of boxes at release, but then fail to retain long term subscriptions.

So what is the 'hook' that TOR has to retain 3 million subscribers?

Originally posted by BattleFelon

Three million subs seems rather optimistic by June, though certainly not impossible. Even if Bioware was selling "generic sci fi game," they'd do well because they have a legion of fans. The Mass Effect series has sold 7 million copies. Add the Star Wars name and you're going to attract huge numbers. What's working against them is the fact that not a lot of people like to invest in a subscription game much past the 2-3 month mark. That's been true of every MMO besides WOW. Even WOW struggles to keep 3 million subscribers in the Western market - most of their vaunted numbers come from Asia.

As you point out, there is a significant difference between people that play single player games, and subscription based games.

• $60 for full game  /=   $60 + $15/mo to play game

People generall do not embrace the idea of paying 'more' for the same, nor do they find value in the 'mmo' aspect (which is why you have so many more gamers vs. MMO gamers).

Also, Star Wars Galaxies and Star Trek Online, as well as Lord of the Rings Online, have demonstrated that fans of the genre, do not mean they are customers for the subscription.   All three of those genre have huge fan bases, that did not cross over to become long term customers of the game.

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Originally posted by zymurgeist

Market research isn't a hard science. This is a theory at best and a wild guess at worst. Then again so is what Kotick says, with a healthy dose of self interested spin on the side. I'm quite sure market researchers predicted Warhammer and AoC would be huge successes too. I think TOR will do quite well but I won't try to elevate that above the level of personal opinon.

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Analyst: WAR subscriptions will eventually settle around 250,000

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Edge writes: "Publisher EA is targeting "around 250,000 subscribers" for Mythic's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, one analyst speculates, suggesting a substantial drop-off of users after the free month is up.

EA said it shipped 1.5 million copies of WAR to retail last week.

Arvind Bhatia at Stern Agee told Edge on Tuesday he came to the 250,000 subscriptions figure based on EA's goal to break even on the game.

"Over time, subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000- 300,000," he said in a phone interview."

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When EA announced eight months later at their investor conference call:

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"As of May 5, 2009, Electronic Arts executives confirmed in an investor conference that they have 300,000 subscribers as of the end of March 2009.."

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The analyst was correct because four months later, Warhammer had exactly 300k subs as verified.

Now the rebuttal SHOULD be "Yeah, but look at Warhammer NOW. They don't even have 100k subs." And to this I agree. But why?

The reason they don't have 250k-300k subs is that Warhammer (and AoC) had GLARING holes, lag and bugs, boring PvE and the PvP was a FTOM fest. Mythic never addressed any of that and Funcom addressed it too late for AoC, which is not what you'd expect a mmo to do to retain subs. If they had fixed those serious problems they'd still have them.

The analyst was basing his projections on the data he saw at the time and was spot on. So given that, one would have to figure that these analysts are in the ballpark too.

The only thing that would keep TOR from not retaining subs would be the same types of serious problems WAR or AoC had/has, of which it has none. It has bugs and some things people don't like but nothing near as bad as Warhammer. Plus, both of the games are rather population DEPENDANT (AoC for PvP side) but TOR isn't. As many critics say in mock, it's "single player", so if people drop off it doesn't affect people who are there mainly for the story.. just like WoW was.

Originally posted by hikaru77

Originally posted by Vhaln

I think they must be assuming that preorders will only be a fraction of the number of boxes they sell and subs they retain, as if they're completely ignorant of trends specific to MMOs.  One thing I've noticed in recent years, preorders seem to account for the huge percentage of initial MMO sales.  I figure it's because when people are sure they want to play an MMO, they all want the benefits like early access.  This sort of thing isn't a factor in the latest shooters and the like, but its become a lot more of a mainstream attitude towards MMOs than it used to be.

 

Another thing to consider is that these days, everyone knows about open betas, and almost everyone that's interested in an MMO gives them a try.  This is also very different from other genres - so not only do those people preorder, but there are a lot less people waiting on word-of-mouth to buy the game if the reviews are good, and all that.  So its difficult for an MMO to accumulate subs faster than they lose subs, even when retention is good.  

 

If retention is poor, OTOH, like so many have been, they wont even have half a million subs by June... and none of this is specific to TOR.  I'm not even going to mention what I think will happen, given my own experience in the beta - if I were an analyst, it'd probably be important to be unbiased, and all bias aside, those are some seriously unlikely predictions.  You'd have to be biased or ignorant to think otherwise.

 

Swtor is the 1st AAA MMO since WoW and when after 1 year of 24/7 beta the 95% of the terster still want to play the game at launch, i dont see a low retention rate. And the people quit when the game Fail at some point, Warhammer was an unfinished game, AION was a lie, Rift, lot of people was there for the PvP and again it was a lie, Same with AoC, Lotro, DC, STO. But BW did and amazing job with Swtor, they really learned form the mistakes of games like warhammer, etc, and BW can make new content and updates pretty fast, to dont let people get bored. And there is not competition for swto, D3 is not even a MMO, Gw2 is b2p and is a game who doesnt have the 10% of the content of swtor, TSW is a Funcom Game. And again swtor is an amazing game, 3 mill by june is really possible. 

You were in a different beta than I. Most of the super positive people were beta testers that weren't playing a lot or weren't in the beta long. The long term adoption rate of SWTOR was very different for those that played the game for more than a few months and had gotten a 50. As for learning from mistakes, there isn't enough time to list all of them so how about world PvP objectives that don't matter, Trinity holding up groups, and too much CC to name a few.

D3 might not be a MMO but it is an MORPG and it will share a lot of the same customers. GW2 will have just as much content as SWTOR does and possibly more; 1500 dynamic events(easily on par with the number of quests SWTOR has INCLUDING class quests), story mode, World vs World, dungeons, etc. I seriously doubt you played SWTOR if you think it has a lot of content, IMO Vanilla WoW had more in terms of both quests, areas(variety), and instances.

Originally posted by Grahor

First of all, 250k subscribers to offset server costs? Either those servers are made of pure gold or management for that part of the operation defecates into pure gold bowls.

 

Secondly, no chance in hell SWTOR will have 1.5 mil permanent subscribers 6 month down the road. 600k - likely, which will make it financially successful, still.

 

This is, of course, just a pathetic opinion of a pathetic citizen, but we'll see who's right.

80 million for operating costs is a big number for sure but that leaves a lot for on going development expenses I guess.  My opinion is that this game will live or die on how much new content is added over time and it's quality.  If they can keep a steady stream (like monthly) of new high quality voice acted content being added I can easily see it retaining millions of subs.  If they can't than half a million may be a more realistic estimate.

I would think that EA/BIoware knows this but who can be sure they have the resolve to follow though.  They might figure that they can get away with releasing content more like WoW does rather than like Rift does in which case I believe these estimates are way off on the high side.

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Originally posted by Loekii

$60 for full game /= $60 + $15/mo to play game

People generall do not embrace the idea of paying 'more' for the same, nor do they find value in the 'mmo' aspect (which is why you have so many more gamers vs. MMO gamers).

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You can't raid in single player KOTOR games, nor can you PvP in them.
You can't even group with people in KOTOR.
You can't craft in KOTOR or sell things to others with an auction house.

Most importantly, you don't SEE anyone else that real in KOTOR (meaning players).

Secondly, there is no real Co-Op Star Wars game out or more importantly.. none that has been released recently that you can play with many others. That simply doesn't exist so TOR fills that void for people who said "Man, I'd like to play a Star Wars game, but I'm tired of playing it by myself."

Saying (or comparing it as one)as if it's a "single player" or trying to compare it with one is a cheap ploy some people have used but it's totally realistic.

It's like saying "Well, a SUV is technically classified as a 'minivan' or a "truck" by many people, so why would anyone buy a those when they could just get a SUV?"

Originally posted by popinjay

 

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Originally posted by jdnewell
I think the game will be profitable for sure.
But all these reports and what not mean nothing IMO.

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Your private "citizen" opinion duly noted.

Professional opinions already stated.

Arguing by "reason of expertise" or "expert opinion" is horrible logic and a fallacy.

People listen to experts because they are supposed to know their field and can supply a credible argument, not because they hold the title expert.  The poster's opinion is just as valid as the "expert" opinion in the article that contained no facts or support, just opinions.

You easily dismiss Kotick's opinion for another expert opinion., At least he had some sort of supporting reasoning behind it.

I disagree with Kotick too and I think ToR will be successful and profitible, but the article in question is just an opinion piece with no supporting evidence other than intuitive conjecture.  You can't dish someone elses opinion when your reference is also a bunch of hollow hype.  Conjecture by an expert is still conjecture.

There isn't 6 months of content in the game unless you reroll or play all aspects of the game very slowly. From what I've experienced, I think PvE will be fine from start to finish, but if you enjoy a robust and interesting crafting experience or PvP system like I was hoping for, well, this might not be the game. And I suspect space combat will rarely be played by most subscribers.

Unless they release a lot of content patches post-release (and quickly), the gameplay systems are simply not good enough to keep people longterm versus some of the competition on the market.

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Originally posted by udon
 They might figure that they can get away with releasing content more like WoW does rather than like Rift does in which case I believe these estimates are way off on the high side.

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I've played Rift for six months and MOST of the people I've been guilded with and/or grouped with had several alts.

Most of the time people spend making at minimum two or three alts to 50 because they were bored. They didn't want to experience the same story (which is what Rift makes you do) but had no choice; they just wanted to level another type of toon.

When someone does alts in ToR, this isn't the problem. The game in many respects is brand new because it's a new world and new choices. This is why WoW was so successful because it gave adventure with many storylines for different classes/races/areas that eventually boiled into one main one.

Rift is two dimensional game; you get one storyline for Guardians (half your classes) and you get one storyline for Defiants (the other half). That tends to add in boredom that leaves only grind raiding or lackluster PvP in arenas. Rifts weren't hardly even done anymore and had taken second/third fiddle to core grinding in dungeons and four arenas when I left.

I lean toward the fanboy camp when it comes to this game, and I don't think for a second that they'll have 3 million subs in 6 months...maybe 1 million.  Sell 3 million boxes this month?  Sure. 

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Originally posted by Torvaldr

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Originally posted by popinjay
 

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Originally posted by jdnewell
I think the game will be profitable for sure.
But all these reports and what not mean nothing IMO.

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Your private "citizen" opinion duly noted.

Professional opinions already stated.

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Arguing by "reason of expertise" or "expert opinion" is horrible logic and a fallacy.

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Remember that the next time you talk to your accountant, your lawyer, your doctor, your bosses, etc.

I can't believe in this day/age, there are people trying to use as a bullet point "Well, you can't trust what all the experts agree on."

This sounds like the Herman Cain School of Philosphy with "ubecky becky becky stan" and not needed to know anything to be President. Of course we want experts and rely on what they say; we'd be foolish not to.

But again, you seem to have fallen short here just like everyone else due to no credible source on your side. Given how big this project has been over five years, you guys simply cannot produce [ii]one credible professional analyst[/i] who seems to think TOR won't hit it's numbers.

Please, just find ONE analyst in your camp so the conversation could be at least a little more even. :)

My honest opinion is that this game will do great out of the gate at launch for several months because there isn't crap-all new out there worth playing, but as more interesting games release, the population will be reduced down quite a bit.  They will still keep a fairly high number of subs though.  I'm sure it will be considered a successful game, but nothing to rival WoW's past success. It just isn't that interesting.  Then again, maybe I am giving people's taste in gaming too much weight....

There is something very wrong when I look at TOR and think about how much "deeper" WoW is.