Originally posted by niceguy3978

Originally posted by Teala

We all know the free month give away and waht not is the only reason theyare saying they have 1. whatever subs.    Idoubt they have even 500k real subs at the moment and how many of those are 6 month subs that don't even play any longer?

The subs were as of 3/31 they gave away the free month in april.

What EA said in their prepared statement was:

Originally posted by MosesZD

Originally posted by wahchile

Most of you are delusional.  Here is an example from the beginning of February:  Can I get the next winning lottery numbers from all of you gurus? 

 

Originally posted by Teala    2/3/12

There is no way in hell they retained 85% of their playbase.  I'd bet mylife on that.   In fact I'd bet right - today as of now, this game has more like 1.2 million subs and has lost upwards of 750k since release.   That means they have seen 45% loss in players since the games release. 

Tag this...and in 2 months we'll come back to these words  I typed, because I am about to make another prediction.  I predict within 2 more months this game is going to be nearing 500k subs.

 

 

 

Lol.  He hit it almost pefectly.

 

Through the end of February, they sold 2.1 million copies.   They sold another 100K in March.   Vitually all the copies sold in March could not drop.

 

So, 1.3 million 'subs' on March 31st.   Of which 100K are forced (March)    We take those out.  That gives us  (maximum) 1.2 million voluntary resubscribers.   (That's actually a bit overstated, btw.  It's closer to 1.05 million, but I don't feel like arguing the point).

 

So, 2.1 million less 1.2 million = 900K dropping.

 

900K/2100K = 42.86% drop rate from the population that had a choice to renew or leave.    And that's the minimum.  It's probably worse because anyone who activated after January 4th with a time card could not drop until April.

 

He was damn good.    You, OTOH, are the one with issues.   

and you're now saying he's correct in predicting that the game is nearing 500k subs?

Originally posted by MosesZD

Actually, it's not.   So, while EA said it, they didn't put on proof of their claims and the evidence suggests that World of Tanks has twice the unique-player log-ins of SWTOR and that League of Legends is clearly the #1 MMO in the West, having three-times the unique-logins of WoW. 

Wow, you just claimed WoT and LoL were MMOs.

Originally posted by gervaise1

Originally posted by niceguy3978

Originally posted by Teala

We all know the free month give away and waht not is the only reason theyare saying they have 1. whatever subs.    Idoubt they have even 500k real subs at the moment and how many of those are 6 month subs that don't even play any longer?

The subs were as of 3/31 they gave away the free month in april.

What EA said in their prepared statement was:

Let me provide you with an update on Star Wars:

Through the end of the quarter, approximately 2.4 million units have sold through. In our last

call we indicated that we had 1.7 million active subscribers, and as of the end of April we ow

have 1.3 million, with a substantial portion of the decrease due to casual and trial players

cycling out of the subscriber base, driving up the overall percentage of paying subscribers.

 

So the 1.3M is at the end of April. Anyone know what a trial player who is also a subscriber is? Or how many of the 1.3M are on a free 30 days?

 

(Saves people checking the link above.)

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by gervaise1

Originally posted by niceguy3978

Originally posted by Teala

We all know the free month give away and waht not is the only reason theyare saying they have 1. whatever subs.    Idoubt they have even 500k real subs at the moment and how many of those are 6 month subs that don't even play any longer?

The subs were as of 3/31 they gave away the free month in april.

What EA said in their prepared statement was:

Let me provide you with an update on Star Wars:

Through the end of the quarter, approximately 2.4 million units have sold through. In our last

call we indicated that we had 1.7 million active subscribers, and as of the end of April we ow

have 1.3 million, with a substantial portion of the decrease due to casual and trial players

cycling out of the subscriber base, driving up the overall percentage of paying subscribers.

 

So the 1.3M is at the end of April. Anyone know what a trial player who is also a subscriber is? Or how many of the 1.3M are on a free 30 days?

 

(Saves people checking the link above.)

 

Yep, the 1.3m at the end of April includes everyone who they gave a free month to whether they wanted it or not.

People refuse to acknowledge that little part of this whole numbers thing.

Originally posted by RefMinor

Originally posted by gervaise1

Originally posted by niceguy3978

Originally posted by Teala

We all know the free month give away and waht not is the only reason theyare saying they have 1. whatever subs.    Idoubt they have even 500k real subs at the moment and how many of those are 6 month subs that don't even play any longer?

The subs were as of 3/31 they gave away the free month in april.

What EA said in their prepared statement was:

Let me provide you with an update on Star Wars:

Through the end of the quarter, approximately 2.4 million units have sold through. In our last

call we indicated that we had 1.7 million active subscribers, and as of the end of April we ow

have 1.3 million, with a substantial portion of the decrease due to casual and trial players

cycling out of the subscriber base, driving up the overall percentage of paying subscribers.

 

So the 1.3M is at the end of April. Anyone know what a trial player who is also a subscriber is? Or how many of the 1.3M are on a free 30 days?

 

(Saves people checking the link above.)

 

Yep, the 1.3m at the end of April includes everyone who they gave a free month to whether they wanted it or not.

 So the Wall Street Journal did get it wrong then? That's interesting. That makes their number a hell of a lot worse then if that truly is the case.

Originally posted by Distopia

Multiplying 1 mil by 15 a month, for 3 months is 45,000,000 and they have had more subs than that, that's not even including 2mil units sold at varying prices starting at $60. That's a crap ton of money in the first few months. For the health of the service that's pretty darn good.

This math never adds up as you have to take into account the massive costs of developing the game in the first place before it made any money at all ($150m - $200m if you take wiki seriously), which would mean that it would be massively surprising if it was anywhere near covering half of that cost yet, let alone making any money. Add to that support costs before and since release and the fact that share holders will be expecting a huge share of the pie as well and you have EA execs now pondering the reality of cutting their losses and running.

I was one of the victims of EA's MMO thinking a long long time ago when they cut Earth & Beyond which although in a different time and at a fraction of the subs we are talking about here, hadn't made anywhere near the percentage of loss that this game has and after a little investigation of the facts had actually made a profit, all be it a small one, but they dumped it anyway as it wasn't the 1m sub game they wanted.

The harsh truth is that if this doesn't hold up to EA's expactations they will just dump it and move to whatever they consider to be their next shining jewel, loyal players be damned :(

ok so swtor maybe failing....did you ever see SWG after the NGE...it had the same effect

so ya aslong as it is star wars im gonna like it

Originally posted by Teala

People refuse to acknowledge that little part of this whole numbers thing.

 In all fairness, a Wall Street Journal article that was even posted here in another topic had EA quoted as saying 1.3 million stating it specifically as being as of the March 31st end of the quarter. So it isn't simply people refusing to accept it or be dismissive about it.

Must be some rich people on this forums,  cause I know you all can predict the lottery numbers, why we have people just pulling numbers outta their arse all the time here!

Any game that loses around 400k subs in a quarter probably isn't doing so hot.

I don't have to run complicated math formulas.  All one has to do is log in during prime time and count between 40-60 players on either fleet go to the different planets add them all up and come up with 200-400 players per server playing during prime time to realize that we got a problem.   I would guess there are still folks with subs who are not logging in waiting for the clock to count down on the canceled subscription.

It does not take rocket science, algebra, complicated boolean math equations to realize we got diminishing returns on players.  I am not playing the math game and debating those numbers, I am talking card hold facts of what I see logged in.

I have to wonder what the ROI returns on invest has been.

Originally posted by erictlewis

I don't have to run complicated math formulas.  All one has to do is log in during prime time and count between 40-60 players on either fleet go to the different planets add them all up and come up with 200-400 players per server playing during prime time to realize that we got a problem.   I would guess there are still folks with subs who are not logging in waiting for the clock to count down on the canceled subscription.

It does not take rocket science, algebra, complicated boolean math equations to realize we got diminishing returns on players.  I am not playing the math game and debating those numbers, I am talking card hold facts of what I see logged in.

Exactly! 

Originally posted by gervaise1

Originally posted by niceguy3978

Originally posted by Teala

We all know the free month give away and waht not is the only reason theyare saying they have 1. whatever subs.    Idoubt they have even 500k real subs at the moment and how many of those are 6 month subs that don't even play any longer?

The subs were as of 3/31 they gave away the free month in april.

What EA said in their prepared statement was:

Let me provide you with an update on Star Wars:

Through the end of the quarter, approximately 2.4 million units have sold through. In our last

call we indicated that we had 1.7 million active subscribers, and as of the end of April we ow

have 1.3 million, with a substantial portion of the decrease due to casual and trial players

cycling out of the subscriber base, driving up the overall percentage of paying subscribers.

 

I'm pretty sure the Folks in My Guild that quit...Which is just about everyone in my Guild...Would be pretty insulted if someone refered to them as casual, or worse yet trial players...If that's what they want the public to believe, so be it...But it's SO much more than that IMHO...SO much more...

Originally posted by erictlewis

I don't have to run complicated math formulas.  All one has to do is log in during prime time and count between 40-60 players on either fleet go to the different planets add them all up and come up with 200-400 players per server playing during prime time to realize that we got a problem.   I would guess there are still folks with subs who are not logging in waiting for the clock to count down on the canceled subscription.

It does not take rocket science, algebra, complicated boolean math equations to realize we got diminishing returns on players.  I am not playing the math game and debating those numbers, I am talking card hold facts of what I see logged in.

I have to wonder what the ROI returns on invest has been.

 The sold 12 million copies, many purely digital with a higher margin, so I am guessing  the initial return was quite good.

I am not argueing that your server is like that but the three I have been playing on are not. The most populated for me is The Harbringer (known to have good population, I know) which last night (Monday, 7pm CST) had 230ish on the empire fleet, 200 + on the republic fleet, 93 on Dromund-Kass, 87 on Alderaan, so on and so on.

I can see where they have lost 400k in subs but 1.3 or even 1 million is still successful by any other MMO but WOW.

It will be interesting to see what turns up in the next few months.

Originally posted by MosesZD

Originally posted by karmath

Originally posted by Hazelle

The game has payed for it's development already and is currently turning a nice profit and so long as they don't dip below their target which was 400k they'll continue to make money on their investment.

Even if the worst case senario plays out for the game they can cut the dev team and bleed out the remaining subs and as long as they shut it down at the right time the game would still be a business success.

I'm sure they would prefer to have a successful game with all of the subscription profits that go with it but while you haters are giggling in your pants over their number losses don't forget that the game is a $ucce$$.

 

It would not have even remotley come close to paying its development costs let alone its on goings.

People seem to forget interest on investor loans, the IP from Lucas, the hero engine, tax, dev staff, customer service staff, web development staff, community managers, middle management, finance staff servers, bandwidth, real estate, utilities  and on and on the list goes.

Interest,tax and the IP license alone would of eaten the entire launch box sales.

 

They also forget that the retail chain takes half the money up.   EA, according to their figures, sells 67% of this game at wholesale.   They don't get one-half of 67% of the gross revenue.   And Lucas Arts, the PUBLISHER, takes 30% of every thing Star Wars.  From Jelly Beans to the SWG license, to phony lightsabers.   I doubt SWTOR is any different.

 

So, post Lucas Arts, they get 70% of Origin store and 35% of retail (70% of 50%).    That $150 million revenue stream from 2.4 million box sales, by the time it gets to EA...   $35 million from the Origin store.   Another $35 million from the retailers.

 

You've now got $70 million in your pocket.   For a $200 million (minimum) game.     You're not profitable.   You haven't even covered development costs.

 

Then the marketing.  Wow, the marketing campaign was huge.  Ricetello said BF3's was $50 million.   I've read media experts who say SWTOR's is broader in scope, but less expensive since it was mostly post-holiday.   With estimates anywhere from $35 million to $50 million.   And considering EA's marketing went up close to $100 million last year thanks to the impact of  BF3, SWTOR and ME3 on marketing...    I believe those estimates.

 

There is a reason the average fortune 500 company, over the past 40 years, has had an annual average profit margin of 5%.   Things cost money to make.  They cost money to operate.  Other people get a piece of your pie.

 

Games are no different.   There is no special magic that all the money gets to the developer.

 

And yet people who clearly don't understand business or accouting tell us the game is profitable.    It's clearly not even close at this point.  

Are you really saying that EA Origin billed EA bioware for the retail sales of an EA game and EA somehow lost 50% on those sales?

<<  Not too long ago people claimed Swtor will go f2p by this time.  >>

$15/mo is practically free.  There's definitely no way to make a profit charging 1.3 million people that little.  The game is done.  It's a tax writeoff, nothing more.  Bioware, EA, the Star Wars franchise and George Lucas are all being taken out into a rugby field in Australia somewhere and being used for target by a visiting eagle scout troup earning their final badge (euthanasia).  $20 million/mo is chump change; it couldn't keep a lone Starbucks in the black nevermind pay for the power to keep a few servers plugged in.  Heck, they barely made Underworld I with $20 million...

EA is lying, they actually dont have 1.3 mil subs at the moment, they have 1.7 mil subs.

Originally posted by Fennris

<<  Not too long ago people claimed Swtor will go f2p by this time.  >>

$15/mo is practically free.  There's definitely no way to make a profit charging 1.3 million people that little.  The game is done.  It's a tax writeoff, nothing more.  Bioware, EA, the Star Wars franchise and George Lucas are all being taken out into a rugby field in Australia somewhere and being used for target by a visiting eagle scout troup earning their final badge (euthanasia).  $20 million/mo is chump change; it couldn't keep a lone Starbucks in the black nevermind pay for the power to keep a few servers plugged in.  Heck, they barely made Underworld I with $20 million...

 

I agree in sentiment, but to play devil's advocate....

Imagine there were two cars. One had 1/4 tank of gas. The other had a full tank. The first car is structurally sound. The second has a hole in the gas tank as big as a golf ball. Which car will you drive?

SWToR is fine, atm. What the detractors are saying is that there is a hole in the gas tank. Some think the tank will drain.

I however believe that they are scrambling for the right patch job to fix the hole, and they are looking at the map for the closest gas station.

The real question is, can they succeed before the gas tank is empty or is their patch job going to end up creating a bigger hole.

Most of what I see is the normal trend of populations finding their 'plateau'. All mmo's in this market start with a much larger number than they are going to keep. But at this point, SWToR's population should start to stabilize - and there are some indicators that it isn't. So there's the argument......

Originally posted by Zorgo

Originally posted by Fennris

<<  Not too long ago people claimed Swtor will go f2p by this time.  >>

$15/mo is practically free.  There's definitely no way to make a profit charging 1.3 million people that little.  The game is done.  It's a tax writeoff, nothing more.  Bioware, EA, the Star Wars franchise and George Lucas are all being taken out into a rugby field in Australia somewhere and being used for target by a visiting eagle scout troup earning their final badge (euthanasia).  $20 million/mo is chump change; it couldn't keep a lone Starbucks in the black nevermind pay for the power to keep a few servers plugged in.  Heck, they barely made Underworld I with $20 million...

 

I agree in sentiment, but to play devil's advocate....

Imagine there were two cars. One had 1/4 tank of gas. The other had a full tank. The first car is structurally sound. The second has a hole in the gas tank as big as a golf ball. Which car will you drive?

SWToR is fine, atm. What the detractors are saying is that there is a hole in the gas tank. Some think the tank will drain.

I however believe that they are scrambling for the right patch job to fix the hole, and they are looking at the map for the closest gas station.

The real question is, can they succeed before the gas tank is empty or is their patch job going to end up creating a bigger hole.

Most of what I see is the normal trend of populations finding their 'plateau'. All mmo's in this market start with a much larger number than they are going to keep. But at this point, SWToR's population should start to stabilize - and there are some indicators that it isn't. So there's the argument......

Lol nice metaphor. Though I think they should have focused less on the backseat mini-displays and DVD-player, and spent a bit more on the paint job and horsepowers. Also I'd prefer manual transmission over automatic.

Anyway, I think they are on the right track patching up what they have currently, but I wish what they have currently would have been a little bit different from the start.

After you have watched all the movies in the car through those mini-displays it's just a 1.6 litre automatic transmission car with default paint job, and that's not very exciting to drive, sure it's convenient when going to shop or work and there's no big problems with it, just not that exciting on the long run.