Originally posted by brody71

Originally posted by Lexin

Promotion was suppose to run till the 5th but they took it down after only 18 hours. 

maybe they sold out.

They sold out of digital copies?

Originally posted by brody71

Originally posted by Lexin

Promotion was suppose to run till the 5th but they took it down after only 18 hours. 

maybe they sold out.

Doubt it. They more then likely got a bunch of pre-orders and see they are losing money so they stopped it.

Originally posted by Hrimnir

Ok, so first off this isnt directly MMO related, but i personally believe that it has to do with the dismal failure that is SWTOR.

Apparently now if you pre-order Mass Effect 3, they will give you a free copy of Battlefield 3:

http://bf3blog.com/2012/02/preorder-mass-effect-3-get-battlefield-3-free/

 

The Mass Effect series is EA's primary cash cow.  This shows that they basically have no faith in it performing well since they're bundling the one actually properly made, quality game that has been released under EA in many years.

Not wanting to defend EA which generally doesn't deserve any defence, but I believe Blizzard is doing the same with Diablo 3

I guess this "offer" has more to do with the fact that ME3 could cannibilize Swtor subscription base or viceversa Swtor might cannibilize ME3 sales, rather than the fact they think ME3 will bomb, because of the disappointment towards Bioware after Swtor poor state of the art.

Blizzard kinda did the same mistake (producing Diable 3 while WoW is still doing great).

They realized that the potential Diablo players are the same of WoW, and that could hit WoW subscription since Diablo 3 has an extended Multiplayer feature (it's almost an MMO) which could see player switching from WoW to Diablo 3 for months.

So they offered Diablo 3 for free if you subscribed to WoW for a year (which I did)

They both got it wrong in producing games which goes almost in direct competition with their own and now they try to hit the ground running with last minute deals.

Originally posted by Bigdaddyx

Originally posted by Lobotomist

EA is not doing very good.

Except from endless sport sequels , they had many investment catastrophies.

SWTOR , although still hanging in the air is obviously a lost of over quarter billion dollars , coupled with failure with what was sopposed to be sure shot : best franchise in the world + best developer + hugamonguous budget

They got big blow in customer reputation and investor reputation.

 

Now they have to blow up the numbers.

This is why they are giving two great game for one.

So that ME3 sales will be maximized and they can say to investors : "We sold X million copies"

Obviously? obviously? really? stop abusing this word for God sakes when not even a word in your post is obvious.

Rage much?

Originally posted by Hrimnir

Ok, so first off this isnt directly MMO related, but i personally believe that it has to do with the dismal failure that is SWTOR.

Apparently now if you pre-order Mass Effect 3, they will give you a free copy of Battlefield 3:

http://bf3blog.com/2012/02/preorder-mass-effect-3-get-battlefield-3-free/

 

The Mass Effect series is EA's primary cash cow.  This shows that they basically have no faith in it performing well since they're bundling the one actually properly made, quality game that has been released under EA in many years.

Sorry, I don't see the connection between this and SWTOR.  If they gave ME3 away free with a year subscription to SWTOR I might though.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

EA is not doing very good.

Except from endless sport sequels , they had many investment catastrophies.

SWTOR , although still hanging in the air is obviously a lost of over quarter billion dollars , coupled with failure with what was sopposed to be sure shot : best franchise in the world + best developer + hugamonguous budget

They got big blow in customer reputation and investor reputation.

 

Now they have to blow up the numbers.

This is why they are giving two great game for one.

So that ME3 sales will be maximized and they can say to investors : "We sold X million copies"

Just because you predicted massive failure for SWTOR http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/333419/page/1, that doesn't mean it has failed.  Let's see how close to the 300K sub mark SWTOR hits in months 3-6.  Your prediction of an expansion in months 6-9 is laughable as is SWTOR going F2P in a year.

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by Lobotomist

 

Just because you predicted massive failure for SWTOR http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/333419/page/1, that doesn't mean it has failed.  Let's see how close to the 300K sub mark SWTOR hits in months 3-6.

Even if it does 700K (and I doubt it will have those numbers after 3 months) is still a failure.

When a company invests 250 million in a game, 2 million sales and 700K is not what is regarded as a success.

EA is not happy with that, I can assure you.

Skyrim costed a lot less and sold 5 million copies its first month.........that's a success

But then again, Bethesda have white paper when they design their games, while EA let the marketing team design theirs.................with catastrophic results

If it wasn't for FIFA, and the Battlefield Franchise and they didn't buy Bioware, EA would not be one of the biggest game pubblishers in the world.

They just focus on few successful IP which they squeeze dry, but they do not allow innovation to their developing teams and that will hurt them sooner rather than later.

Originally posted by Autorock

(Star Wars: The Old Republic has received generally positive reviews from critics, with a score of 85 on Metacritic and a 84.46% on Gamerankings.

G4TV gave a review of 5/5 and praised the game for "Top notch music and voice acting" and "hundreds of hours of content."

PC Gamer gave a 93/100, praising the story, voice acting, and the amount of content available.

Gamespy gave a review of 4/5, praising the story lines and companion system but criticising the "standard kill and fetch" quests.

GameSpot gave the game 8.0/10, saying "SWTOR isn't the next step in online role-playing games. Instead, it's a highly entertaining refinement of what has come before it."

The game has received a 9.0/10 "Amazing" rating from IGN.com.

MSNBC awarded Star Wars: The Old Republic as game of the year.)

Estimated at 1.7 Million subscribers earlier this month. Over 2 million copies sold.

Whether you like it or not, that is not a dismal failure of any sort. I understand it's not for everyone, stfu with the doom and gloom plox.

Hey thoughs Site reviews are lower then Warhammer online review scores Must be Solid info.....

Blizzard are practically giving away Diablo 3, and its not uncommon to see other companies having bundle offers.

Originally posted by grapevine

 

Just seems to be a market trend to be honest.

 

Blizzard are practically giving away Diablo 3, and its not uncommon to see other companies having bundle offers.

Good point forgot Diablo 3 was free with a year pass to WoW.

Originally posted by ste2000

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by Lobotomist

 

Just because you predicted massive failure for SWTOR http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/333419/page/1, that doesn't mean it has failed.  Let's see how close to the 300K sub mark SWTOR hits in months 3-6.

Even if it does 700K (and I doubt it will have those numbers after 3 months) is still a failure.

When a company invests 250 million in a game, 2 million sales and 700K is not what is regarded as a success.

EA is not happy with that, I can assure you.

 

Somehow that 'I can assure you' line can't be taken seriously when figures of '250 million' is thrown about.

EA/BW has never revealed how much they spent on SWTOR so how did you get that figure?

How can you assure anything when you are creating numbers out of thin air? :(

Originally posted by ste2000

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Originally posted by Lobotomist

 

Just because you predicted massive failure for SWTOR http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/333419/page/1, that doesn't mean it has failed.  Let's see how close to the 300K sub mark SWTOR hits in months 3-6.

Even if it does 700K (and I doubt it will have those numbers after 3 months) is still a failure.

When a company invests 250 million in a game, 2 million sales and 700K is not what is regarded as a success.

EA is not happy with that, I can assure you.

 

Skyrim costed a lot less and sold 5 million copies its first month.........that's a success

But then again, Bethesda have white paper when they design their games, while EA let the marketing team design theirs.................with catastrophic results

 

If it wasn't for FIFA, and the Battlefield Franchise and they didn't buy Bioware, EA would not be one of the biggest game pubblishers in the world.

They just focus on few successful IP which they squeeze dry, but they do not allow innovation to their developing teams and that will hurt them sooner rather than later.

Didn't Bioware/ EA made a statement that they need around 500K subs to break it even? they never claimed that they need more than a million subs..please feel free to find me any information to prove your point. What you personally feel is not true for the company and way it conducts its business. I am sure they already know how many subs they need to keep game profitable.

EA is not happy with that? how do you know that for sure? i hate it when people are so sure about what gaming companies are feeling when they are sitting in front of PC and have no direct relaiton with internal working of the company itself. And this goes for any MMO not just SWTOR. Stop trying to pass your assumptions as some factual informaiton.

Also, skyrims sales were high for one obvious reasons..firstly it is not an MMO so no monthly sub obligation and secondly it was released on consoles as well. Obviously sales are going to be high since consoles makes up for the majority of gaming sales for single player titles. 

I love it when people who know bugger all about how large corporations work Interpret a complete absence of supporting facts as the apocolypse. It's so enlightening. 

Originally posted by zymurgeist

I love it when people who know bugger all about how large corporations work Interpret a complete absence of supporting facts as the apocolypse. It's so enlightening. 

Any excuse they can find to take a shot at SWTOR.

Originally posted by FrostWyrm

Originally posted by zymurgeist

I love it when people who know bugger all about how large corporations work Interpret a complete absence of supporting facts as the apocolypse. It's so enlightening. 

Any excuse they can find to take a shot at SWTOR.

Perhaps its because people here tend to know a great deal about MMO's, and can make 'educated' guesses as to how well, or not, a game is doing based on current trends, of course, its easy to get things wrong too, but, don't be too surprised if in a month or two's time it turns out it was entirely too accurate, you'd be surprised how many people here remember Earth and Beyond too, and how well that went. 

as for the rest, people will always take a shot at an 'easy target' 

Originally posted by Bigdaddyx

Originally posted by ste2000

 

Didn't Bioware/ EA made a statement that they need around 500K subs to break it even? they never claimed that they need more than a million subs..please feel free to find me any information to prove your point. What you personally feel is not true for the company and way it conducts its business. I am sure they already know how many subs they need to keep game profitable.

EA is not happy with that? how do you know that for sure? i hate it when people are so sure about what gaming companies are feeling when they are sitting in front of PC and have no direct relaiton with internal working of the company itself. And this goes for any MMO not just SWTOR. Stop trying to pass your assumptions as some factual informaiton.

Also, skyrims sales were high for one obvious reasons..firstly it is not an MMO so no monthly sub obligation and secondly it was released on consoles as well. Obviously sales are going to be high since consoles makes up for the majority of gaming sales for single player titles. 

Between break even and being a success  there is a huge gap.

Corporations don't make products to just break even.............that's the worst case scenario

Swtor had WoW subscriber base as target, they said it many times

Not only they didn't get anywhere as close to the WoW numbers as planned, they just performed slightly better than a low budget MMO like Rift.

EA won't be happy with a break even, and investors even less, because it means no dividend.

Regarding the Skyrim comparison.

Swtor doesn't have any monthly subscription obbligation either, you can play Swtor as a single player game for a month, since your first month is free, therefore is not a valid excuse, particularly if you consider the fact that Swtor was supposed to be main WoW competitor in the market by Bioware own admission.

Yay for another EA is failing thread. When will people learn how real world works ?

Oh wait, people usually don't and that is why people fall for stupid politicians' lies again and again.

One says the world is ending and stupid ones just running around like chickens have their head cut off.

Originally posted by Phry

Originally posted by FrostWyrm

Originally posted by zymurgeist

I love it when people who know bugger all about how large corporations work Interpret a complete absence of supporting facts as the apocolypse. It's so enlightening. 

Any excuse they can find to take a shot at SWTOR.

Perhaps its because people here tend to know a great deal about MMO's, and can make 'educated' guesses as to how well, or not, a game is doing based on current trends, of course, its easy to get things wrong too, but, don't be too surprised if in a month or two's time it turns out it was entirely too accurate, you'd be surprised how many people here remember Earth and Beyond too, and how well that went. 

as for the rest, people will always take a shot at an 'easy target' 

 People here do not know a great deal about the MMO business. They have no education or experience in the business aspects. Your premise is false. As for a month or two I'm still waiting for AoC to cause Funcom to be bankrupt within a month as predicted often and loudly for months by the MMORPG.com pundits years ago. I'm also waiting for SWTOR to go F2P within a month as predicted months ago.

Some people will take a shot at anything that's why I don't go into the woods during hunting season.

Originally posted by smh_alot

Originally posted by grndzro

One thing that puzzles me is that prior to TOR's release Bioware wasn't banging it's drums much about TOR, it was all FUD style quick glimpses of action and very minimal event participation. This leads me to believe that even Bioware wasn't too proud of it's own product.

So why do some fans think it's the best thing since sliced bread. It looks like garbage, no endgame, replayability is boring due to overused voiceovers, Leveling is too fast to properly enjoy all the quests, combat is EZ mode, PVP is a mess....

In contrast to GW2 that is headlining every event to show fans every possible aspect of the game because it's that awesome.

If I would have bought TOR at release I had no choice but to pray it was awesome. By the time GW2 comes out I will know for a fact that it will be awesome due to the amount of coverage. Looking at the 2 company's faith in their own products brings a stark contrast.

 

Who says TOR fans think it was the best thing since sliced bread? Who says most TOR fans don't simply see it as a fun MMO to play? Who says there's no endgame or replayability and that leveling is too fast? Maybe to you, but endgame, replayability and leveling speed is certainly not worse than most other AAA MMO's, and to quite some people even better than in a lot of those other MMO's. If anything, I'd rather think that it's some GW2 fans who're in ultra fanboi mode and who think it's the best thing since sliced bread. Hey, I don't really care, if that's their thing to go into hyper fanboi mode then that's their thing, but let's not use double standards. People simply enjoy what they like, and what one person likes another person can dislike. That's how life usually works.

Please pay attention to syntax. If you had actually read the word red you wouldn't have posted.

Originally posted by Zarthorn

If stuff like this is happening, it might well be pointing to Lucas raging at how SWTOR has turned out and that it's currently bleeding subs, making it the 2nd failure under the Star Wars brand.

Will SWTOR become F2P?

If the official forums are anything to go by with how disenchanted the consumers are, I doubt it'll get that far and may well see the plug pulled before it makes it to it's first aniversary.

Bioware need to really pull something special out of the bag in there next few major patches or they could be facing a financial burden and Lucas isn't known to be exactly "patient" when it comes to his cut.

LoL, SWTOR is the most successful MMO Post-WoW, you will find that they have more people joining everyday than quitting the game, They have an huge content update in march and the Asia-Pacific Launch.   You need to learn how to live in a world where SWTOR is already an HUGE SUCCESS, LIVE WITH IT.