I think we all saw this coming, SWTOR brought nothing new to the table other than its IP.

Originally posted by iceman00

Originally posted by PyrateLV

“Star Wars: The Old Republic” showed signs of weakening. EA said active subscribers totaled 1.3 million at the end of the quarter — down 24% from the 1.7 million reported at the end of the December period, when the game first launched.

 

ROFL!

 

What happened to - "subscriber numbers haven’t dropped, but concurrent users at peak times have" - Daniel Erickson

That statement came less than a month ago

 

 

Eh, in this case, it was just a lagging indicator.  i'm sure he knew what was coming next, but he wasn't technically lying.  He was just speaking with so much legalese that anyone who understood MMO's couldn't stop laughing as he talked.

But the money shot here is that basically within 4 months of release, TOR has lost at least 25% of its subcriber base.  No real way to spin that. 

That's actually pretty damn good they still have that many after this long. Most games hyped like SWTOR - (AoC, RIFT, WAR, soon to be TERA) half half the subs SWTOR currently has at this point.

Originally posted by SuperXero89

Consolidate or get rid of dailies.  I should not have to spend the entire day running dailies spread out across three planets that take hours to complete.  Add a cross-server dungeon finder, increase loot rewards in hardmode flashpoints, decrease difficulty of hardmode flashpoints.  Profit.

While they're at it, possibly decrease the level of rewards from storymode operations or increase difficulty so that people aren't skipping straight to the raid content after hitting 50.

 

Now all BioWare has to do is add more content.

Remove dailies, yes.  replace it with, I dunno, actual content.  And please send that message to every damn MMO company out there.  But Bioware has already said "repeatable non-raid content" is in the future.....

As far as reduce the difficulty of HM, no.  You don't want to do that as an MMO.  Maybe on one mission or so, but across the board, no.  If anything HM needs to be redesigned so it is tactically far different because of the increased difficulty, not just a DPS race.  Though that is hard to do when you are defined by a trinity system admittedly.

Originally posted by Slampig

If you people don't play it, why beat this dead horse?

Is it a case of the "I told you so's"?

I mean, the forum space needs to be concentrated on the Elder Scrolls and this is just taking up too much of that space...

Eh, you know how this goes.

Game gets incredible hype.

Game ends up not meeting it.

Player points it out, and states he is leaving.

Those who think it does live up to the hype go into full forum-rage in attacking the individuals.

Haters go into full forum-rage in attacking the fanbois.

Numbers come out proving the haters not neccessarily right, but closer to the truth than the fanbois.

At this point, just grab the popcorn and enjoy the show!

Originally posted by iceman00

Originally posted by Slampig

If you people don't play it, why beat this dead horse?

Is it a case of the "I told you so's"?

I mean, the forum space needs to be concentrated on the Elder Scrolls and this is just taking up too much of that space...

Eh, you know how this goes.

 

Game gets incredible hype.

Game ends up not meeting it.

Player points it out, and states he is leaving.

Those who think it does live up to the hype go into full forum-rage in attacking the individuals.

Haters go into full forum-rage in attacking the fanbois.

Numbers come out proving the haters not neccessarily right, but closer to the truth than the fanbois.

At this point, just grab the popcorn and enjoy the show!

Also lots of us are bored as we have the MMO bug but we don't like any of the current MMOs.  So we play the poke the fanboy game.

Originally posted by Nevulus

Originally posted by adam_nox

Originally posted by Nevulus

"But “Star Wars: The Old Republic” showed signs of weakening. EA said active subscribers totaled 1.3 million at the end of the quarter — down 24% from the 1.7 million reported at the end of the December period, when the game first launched"

I work as a stock analyst for [edit]. I specialize in the tech sector, lately I have been assigned to online games.I wish I could publish our results from our analyst group so you can see the impact SWTOR had on EA, or lack of, and the truth behind the numbers. But alas I am not allowed so I will only say that as much as I would like to see EA crumble and burn, They are holding well over a million paid subs as of March.

You knowing any more than anyone else who is following the stock and the publically available info, and acting upon it, would be insider trading.  In truth, analysts are talking heads, and we often laugh at them on these forums for being so wrong.  You can say you know etc etc, but you don't.  No one knows how many subs are being floated by their 30 day freebies, and other accounting methods that they don't have to detail.

 

As to the impact on EA, who cares.

 

I was right when I said they would maintain over 1 million subs, and I will be right again when their number drops under 1 million in 4 months. You can laugh all you want, they can't maintain 1 million without a big expansion within the next 4 months. or some MAJOR changes. And after listening to the conference call, I just dont see that happening.

So your not relying on some super duper secret data from your firm...... your relying on **%&%*&% common sense.  A game declining in sales, unless it makes real changes, will increase its rate of decline.  This ain't neccessarily rocket science.  How much student debt you rack up in college so you would be able to make this prediction?

Originally posted by Talonsin

I think WoW really screwed up everyones expectations for MMO and sub numbers.  I dont deny the game has lost a lot of subs but it is also pulling in some cash.

 

2 mill copies sold ($50 mill assuming they averaged half the sales price)

3 months of 1.5 mill sub average ($67+ mill)

In the first quarter alone they almost broke even on the $150 development costs.  Even if they fall down to 1 mill subs thats still $15 million a month coming in.  At mid-summer the game will have paid for itself and then become a money printing machine compared to most other MMO's.

 

I agree everyone expected more from the game but if I were an investor, I would not be concerned just yet. 

 

As the Biodrones say "where do you get that 150 development cost" figure from? 

But you also have to take into account the maintenence in their data centers for all these servers.  Not out of this world expensive, but not cheap either.  Then you need to take into account the tens of millions they've spent in marketing.  Then the cut that goes out to other third parties besides  the retailers.  Then you gotta pay the creditors.

That is what has investors a bit pessimistic, and then you tie in the overall disastarous shape that EA is currently in.  That will continue until end of the year when they release Madden, and this provides a temporary tonic.

Just cant believe you all are still whining about Swtor.

Originally posted by Greyhooff

Bioware/EA viral marketing department is in panic mode.

Check out the sheer number of EA paid shills on this thread in the SWTOR official forum. It is mind-boggling.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=447469&page=19

They banned all the constructive critics and anyone who said anything negative, now their threads are just pages of shills discussing back and forth with fanboys, backed up by their corrupt fascist moderators who are "editing" threads to make them look better, all desperately trying to make the game look as if it's not completely dead already.

Their new story: it was the bad community that killed SWTOR.

That's right, they're blaming the players for SWTOR's problems, in order to deflect the blame from their **** devs who made a **** game!

Nice spin, blame the community that tried to fix the game by providing feedback and solutions - and got banned for it, and don't blame the terrible clueless lead developers who destroyed the game with terrible decisions, 1.2 class balance, no merges because "it would look bad" etc etc etc.

The truth is, we didn't deserve such a great game.  We weren't ready for Bioware to revolutionize the industry, so we destroyed it.

Originally posted by Distopia

I can't believe so many get so heated about this topic, I really can't. What does it matter how many subs TOR has and why has this argument continued for so long? It's been months of this back and forth, for what?

you been around these forums long enough to know people get pretty crazy about these games... now take that with such hype this game brought on times that by the fact they have the biggest IP you could hope for coming into the swarm of fantasy games out there. People expected more, and when they were let down by what the end result was it feels refreshing in a way others share this view.  You really have no real options out there for decent scifi MMO and for me this game does not feel like a MMO and that alone is such a slap in the face from the creators it really does tick me off. 

I'm not one to gloat at ones failure but just listening to the developers and seeing how arrogant they have been and how little they actual listen to their customer base from way back in closed beta just adds more fuel to the hate fire they have created...

on a side note been playing Mass Effect 3 and loving it! heh

Unless ea does something fast there 1.2 mill going to be less than 500k in the next 3 months.  Something for investors to think about.  All I can say is bio-ware caught up in their own lie of were not loosing subs,  well yes  yes you are loosing a lot of subs.

Originally posted by c-tray

Originally posted by Dahkot72

EA says so

 

25% hit as of end of quarter

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ea-sales-beat-targets-star-wars-takes-hit-2012-05-07?siteid=yhoof2

 

And my guess ? Just the beginning of the slope.

not to mention they gave out free a month to all players with lvl 50's and/or legacy lvl 6+, so this kind of skews the truth about what the current trend is as far as investors are concerned. I'm sure it was intentional. 

It's too bad, for all the bad rap I liked playing swtor...until I hit 50. <--- This

Lets see..... 1.7 Subs to 1.3 million, 400k drop.  Thats 400 k lost with TERA out, GW2 beta (people moving to that type of  game genre ), Diablo 3, and of course the normal folks who just leave because they dont like it.  

In the kind of enviroment that SWTOR is now against thats not to shabby.....Also as mentioned before with a huge space upgrade in the works and 2 expanisons for release this year, you can expect it to get somewhat better.

The leveling content in the game was great unfortunately once you hit 50 and breezed through the Easy mode operations there was no reason to do hardmode Flashpoints(equivalent gear). A semi-hardcore gamer could and did get decked out in full epics shortly after release. There's just nothing left to do.... Grind PvP ranks? lol

Ilum was a flop, the servers couldn't even handle a small scale battle.

Reduce the number of game servers so the current population atleast has some people to play with and get a decent LFG tool. This game could very well hang on to 750k + for the year if they get 1.3 out in the next couple of months but even then there's just not enough long term content in the game at the moment. It's just too easy.

Originally posted by OldMMOGamer

Lets see..... 1.7 Subs to 1.3 million, 400k drop.  Thats 400 k lost with TERA out, GW2 beta (people moving to that type of  game genre ), Diablo 3, and of course the normal folks who just leave because they dont like it.  

In the kind of enviroment that SWTOR is now against thats not to shabby.....Also as mentioned before with a huge space upgrade in the works and 2 expanisons for release this year, you can expect it to get somewhat better.

Correction:

This was recorded at the end of quarter, which would have been the end of April. So this is without Tera out, without GW2 out, Without Diablo 3 out, Without any major game coming out.   People aren't leaving this game to play anything else, unless its something they were already playing.  SWTOR had pretty much a 6 month heads start on anything it would call competition.  

This is a sign of a game beating itself.  

Originally posted by Dahkot72

EA spin amuses me to no end ,

"In a conference call this afternoon, EA said the decrease was indeed due to "casual and trial players" cycling out of the game."

So I and all the other who have quit are "casual" or "trial" players.

I grew up with Star Wars in the 70's/80's , have played mmorpg's since EQ launch , and stilil prefer mmorpg's to any other game. I put in 20+ hours a week (late nights usually with wife/kids) and planned on playing TOR for quite a while.

I quit because the game is stale garbage , boring , and PVP is laughable at best. I play TERA now , likely TSW for a mix, and still toying with idea of GW2.

EA you lost many of those subs because you made a boring , "safe" , game that is not worth a sub fee , has an engine that chokes on large scale numbers , and couldn't make world PVP or even large BG's (Illum) work even after years of development.

I'm not "casual" ,

your game is crap.

MOre folk who throw the word casual around as an insult.  I play games 20 hours a week, are they making a game for me.  Thats what they should be asking.  

Originally posted by dontadow

Originally posted by OldMMOGamer

Lets see..... 1.7 Subs to 1.3 million, 400k drop.  Thats 400 k lost with TERA out, GW2 beta (people moving to that type of  game genre ), Diablo 3, and of course the normal folks who just leave because they dont like it.  

In the kind of enviroment that SWTOR is now against thats not to shabby.....Also as mentioned before with a huge space upgrade in the works and 2 expanisons for release this year, you can expect it to get somewhat better.

Correction:

This was recorded at the end of quarter, which would have been the end of April. So this is without Tera out, without GW2 out, Without Diablo 3 out, Without any major game coming out.   People aren't leaving this game to play anything else, unless its something they were already playing.  SWTOR had pretty much a 6 month heads start on anything it would call competition.  

This is a sign of a game beating itself.  

Wrong, people are not going to keep re-subbing if other games are coming out, They move on anymore in anticipation of said games.  I for one love the game, however I'm going to play D3, so I unsubbed.  When i finish D3 or want to go back into SWTOR I will.  

Originally posted by Distopia

I can't believe so many get so heated about this topic, I really can't. What does it matter how many subs TOR has and why has this argument continued for so long? It's been months of this back and forth, for what?

You've been around here long enough to know that some posters take their "hobby" a little to personally.

Originally posted by ktanner3

Originally posted by Distopia

I can't believe so many get so heated about this topic, I really can't. What does it matter how many subs TOR has and why has this argument continued for so long? It's been months of this back and forth, for what?

You've been around here long enough to know that some posters take their "hobby" a little to personally.

The whining usually dies down after the first month..

Originally posted by OldMMOGamer

Originally posted by dontadow

Originally posted by OldMMOGamer

Lets see..... 1.7 Subs to 1.3 million, 400k drop.  Thats 400 k lost with TERA out, GW2 beta (people moving to that type of  game genre ), Diablo 3, and of course the normal folks who just leave because they dont like it.  

In the kind of enviroment that SWTOR is now against thats not to shabby.....Also as mentioned before with a huge space upgrade in the works and 2 expanisons for release this year, you can expect it to get somewhat better.

Correction:

This was recorded at the end of quarter, which would have been the end of April. So this is without Tera out, without GW2 out, Without Diablo 3 out, Without any major game coming out.   People aren't leaving this game to play anything else, unless its something they were already playing.  SWTOR had pretty much a 6 month heads start on anything it would call competition.  

This is a sign of a game beating itself.  

Wrong, people are not going to keep re-subbing if other games are coming out, They move on anymore in anticipation of said games.  I for one love the game, however I'm going to play D3, so I unsubbed.  When i finish D3 or want to go back into SWTOR I will.  

 

I doubt you're goign to quit playing agame that you're enjoying.   There are two mindsets here. 

One is, you are having fun playing swtor and u want to try something else when it comes out. Well u'll wait until it comes out or drop your sub a month before (neither tera or diablo fit this timeline).  Or you don'[t like the game and you just drop it and decide to wait until the next game.  This shows a more unpleasant experience that you'd rather not play anything at all than play SWTOR.