who cares ? SWTOR is dead

I doubt SWToR will go F2P in the 1st year or even in the 2nd.

The game has only been in the public play for 5+ months (even though it seems longer than that) and still way to earlier to see where the mmo titles goes.

I believe they will still pull it off, but they better get on the ball quickly.

Lifetime subscription is more likely then SWTOR going F2P. I would give them up to 50€ for lifetime sub.

I cancelled 2 months ago BTW.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

George Lucas won't allow it. He'd rather see it go down in flames like the Hindenburg than ever go F2P, B2P or anything else.

 You know I keep seeing the occasional poster say this and I have to ask why. He gets his money regardless via licensing fees so why would he care? Is he some big mmo gamer that rants and raves about how he hates f2p? Where exactly is that coming from and why if they can show him that it would be ideal to maximize or increase their profits if he is also receiving a stipend would he ever be against it?

Originally posted by zymurgeist

George Lucas won't allow it. He'd rather see it go down in flames like the Hindenburg than ever go F2P, B2P or anything else.

Yeah, because George Lucas is totally an spited MMO gamer and cares about the financial model...

Interesting observation that the tone of the official forum's paid shills has changed as well.

It's like they're sending a new memo around, to get an idea of the feasibility of F2P.

Bear in mind that EAware has been incredibly quiet since 1.2 and the steep sub decline.

Internal numbers would show not 1.3 million but below 400k subs around now, so it's crunch time over there.

                                                                    Just end it.......

Originally posted by BrooksTech

SWTOR still has the 2nd largest active sub base and EA says they would be profitable with 500k subs.  The game does not need to go f2p.

It is interesting that EA didn't define a subscriber when they announced 1.3M ; how did they count those on 30 days free? Remember the 1.3M number was as at the end of April.

Profitable at 500k? Not quite; the word was 'break even' and 'nothing to write home about at 1M' and 'would not have made the investment if they hadn't expected 1M'. And break even means on a day-to-day basis not repaying the investment. Think of it this way: you buy an apartment and rent it out; after cleaning bills, taxes and whatever you make £/$1,000 a month. Hurray you are profitable; your income exceeds your expenses. Now if only you didn't have to pay back the £/$100k loan you took out to buy the apartment in the first place ..... maybe in 20 years time allowing for the loan interest ....

Could it go F2P; why not Clone Wars is F2P. However a posible (big) problem I see is that it might need the agreement with LucasArts to be renegotiated. If it is a case of EA paying LucasArts a bundle of cash each year for 2 or 3 years then it should be easy. If it is a more complicated profit/risk sharing agreement however - a minimum payment of X and then so much per sub up to 500k subs, so much up to 1M, so much over 1M  etc etc then you have 'interesting times' ahead. LucasArts will want its money - I agree with the above posters on that.

As to it being 'to late' I tend to agree; I also believe it might be very hard. There is no 'reason' to stick around much after 50 so I think the unlocks might have to be the story lines and maybe the encounters.

I think that SWTOR lost its chance at taking on Wow head-to-head.  I don't think any game company can do that - Wow has had billions in revenue and they've put a lot back into their game - but if anyone had a chance it would have been Bioware & Lucas.  But I don't see the doom & gloom either.  Not hitting up and keeping 5 million NA accounts like so many posters here feel was the only way to be considered a success does not really mean the game or the company are dead or doomed.

I honestly would of had zero complaints if it was B2P and happily leveled at least 4 characters to the level cap to see the class stories.  Instead I quit without ever paying a sub and now look back at the game very poorly. 

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Just look up my predictions that I made month before game launched ;)

Anyway

I think its to late even for F2P to save the game.

It should have been B2P from the start up, to have any chance.

 

These predictions of yours weren't really that good.  How many AAA MMOs release an expansion in the first year, let alone the first 6-9 months.

Month 1-3 : 1 million subs.
Month 3-6 : 300 thousand subs.
(GW2, D3 launches)
Month 6-9: Expansion launched , subs on slight rise
Month 10-12 : F2P announced , subs on all time low
1 year : SWTOR goes F2P

It's pretty stupid to think SWTOR would go F2P at this stage. That's the last thing EA would do. EA will start shifting programers around to increase staff, trying to push more content to the game first. And offering more crap for players to stay in the game. Is the game dead? who knows, I keep hearing that Mythic put the whole game together. If managment at EA is smart they'd fire the idiots that headed up the project and get fresh new talent on the game.

Fucking up a Star Wars game should be sacrilegious.

Originally posted by Dakeru

Would be a step into the right direction, swallowing their pride and considering other models to make a profit.

The game is 30€ on amazon.. should they come up with a b2p version then I would buy the game and play together with a rl friend on weekends.

That was quite fun during their beta weekends - just not enough fun to justify a subscription.

Also a subscription always puts a kind of pressure on you to go level your char and use the time you are paying for.

B2p would turn this game into a nice casual weekend hobby.

because 12$ a month, or 6 euros or whatever, is a huge montly investment right.

meh