Originally posted by madjonNZ

It will be years before another starwars MMO is made , If at all.....so so dissapointed....  :-(

 

There are so many other developers that would have given this IP the love and depth it deserves as a piece of art instead of a cash cow.

+10000 to that

if sony were smart they could jiggle about with a few assets, roll back some updates and release a game called

"Wars in the Stars" for next to nothing

Originally posted by Uhwop

I hope zenimax is paying attention, they're witnessing the fate of TESO a year plus before it launches.

Keep making "traditional" mmo's, and this is what you can expect to happen. 

Every corporation wants a product that has long term finanical viability.  The funny part is, none of them seem to understand how to do it.   If the only thing you can do is to look across the pond at what your neighbor is doing, you'll never succeed.  The guys making the games have fallen into the same trap as the people playing them, they all think that WoW imitated when it really didn't, and figure if they do the same then they can't fail.

 

TESO wont be an on the rails SPRG pretending to be a MMO like SWTOR

They all ready use words like go off and explore, vast world, no quest hubs, an entire pvp province etc..  Its not SWTOR, the only things it has in common with SWTOR is an action bar and associations with a single player RPG series.

Also they dont have to stump up a wedge of cash for george lucas every month

SWTOR, as much as I feel as it was miss-stepped by bioware, the biggest villian here is EA in crippling the game. When your all profit profit profit and have a complete lack of respect for both costumer AND employee, your going to kill any company you absorb no matter how great their previous works were.

Originally posted by ShakyMo

Originally posted by Uhwop

I hope zenimax is paying attention, they're witnessing the fate of TESO a year plus before it launches.

Keep making "traditional" mmo's, and this is what you can expect to happen. 

Every corporation wants a product that has long term finanical viability.  The funny part is, none of them seem to understand how to do it.   If the only thing you can do is to look across the pond at what your neighbor is doing, you'll never succeed.  The guys making the games have fallen into the same trap as the people playing them, they all think that WoW imitated when it really didn't, and figure if they do the same then they can't fail.

 

TESO wont be an on the rails SPRG pretending to be a MMO like SWTOR

They all ready use words like go off and explore, vast world, no quest hubs, an entire pvp province etc..  Its not SWTOR, the only things it has in common with SWTOR is an action bar and associations with a single player RPG series.

Also they dont have to stump up a wedge of cash for george lucas every month

Umm...

Bioware said the same things about SWTORs "exploration" "vast worlds" and "open pvp (Ilum)"

Zenimax is feeding you the same crap that Bioware/EA did. Only this time its Elder Scrolls flavored.

How did the SWTOR flavor taste?

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by ShakyMo

Originally posted by Uhwop

I hope zenimax is paying attention, they're witnessing the fate of TESO a year plus before it launches.

Keep making "traditional" mmo's, and this is what you can expect to happen. 

Every corporation wants a product that has long term finanical viability.  The funny part is, none of them seem to understand how to do it.   If the only thing you can do is to look across the pond at what your neighbor is doing, you'll never succeed.  The guys making the games have fallen into the same trap as the people playing them, they all think that WoW imitated when it really didn't, and figure if they do the same then they can't fail.

 

TESO wont be an on the rails SPRG pretending to be a MMO like SWTOR

They all ready use words like go off and explore, vast world, no quest hubs, an entire pvp province etc..  Its not SWTOR, the only things it has in common with SWTOR is an action bar and associations with a single player RPG series.

Also they dont have to stump up a wedge of cash for george lucas every month

Umm...

Bioware said the same things about SWTORs "exploration" "vast worlds" and "open pvp (Ilum)"

 

Zenimax is feeding you the same crap that Bioware/EA did. Only this time its Elder Scrolls flavored.

How did the SWTOR flavor taste?

I'm backing this guy up on this statement.

These same things were said by Bioware about swtor. 

Its a set standard of words used to excite potential buyers.  Can't be trusted.

Originally posted by Zekiah

Priority = Quick Box Sales = Mission accomplished

lmaooo EA beat the game. 2 years from now we will look back and say "remember swtor?" and people will say "no i do not.. i do not remember swtor. "

/lewtz 

Originally posted by Buttski

i lol'd :D

:D

As I and many others have said forever.. there will never be another micheal jordan.. and there will never be another world of warcraft.. its not because the games cant make another "wow" its just the timing is different.. wow was perfect timing..Blizzard had NO idea it would work out the way it did.. it just worked. There is no real formula. I dont think its fair to us as consumers that we are forced to play wow over and over again.. no matter the ip every game since warcraft went mmo has been warcraft since it went mmo.

devs are too focused on re-making wow when they should be focused on making  their own game. 

Originally posted by CujoSWAoA

Star Wars deserves more than this.

Didn't I say this back before the game launched?   Oh yeah...I did.

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Teala/122011/22393_Who-wants-Star-Wars-the-Old-Republic-to-succeed-Raise-your-hand

I thought it was pretty obvious, if it's not making as much money then it wont be as important as the games that are. It's also pretty obvious that he wants the game to go F2P and so does everyone else.

To be fair to EA if you look at what JR said in contect he was referring to less attention from analysts.

That said less subscribers = less money = less development.

As to the game having paid back its investment - not possible at this moment in time. According to EA themselves they would not have made the investment if they did not expect 1M+ subscribers for the long haul (put at around 2 years depending on sub level, advertising etc.)

Box sales recoup some of the cost - but Amazon, taxes, the people who print the manuals etc. all take a cut of the box price. The estimate was $60M profit from 2M sales - so say $66M for 2.4M?. Hence EA's own statement about the payback coming from the subscribers.

As to what the game cost i) Bioware ii) EA and iii) EA's shareholders well getting to $200M isn't a stretch and if the numbers of people involved are true then it will be more. Just assume a headcount in each year of development (start small at say 100 folks and build the number up) and multiply by a pretty basic cost per person. Even at $100k for wages, all taxes, pension, medical, dental and all expenses e.g. software licences for developers, servers for IT folk etc. you get to $200M very easily.

Add in a chunk of the $620M cash that EA paid for Bioware/Pandemic (13 games now I think they have published so close to $50M a game on top of the development cost - or, if you are a shareholder a chunk of the $860M it cost to buy Bioware/Pandemic ($240M stock options so not really a cost to EA but certainly to shareholder).

Doesn't matter what it is though. EA have said: 500k to break even (i.e. on a day-to-day basis); 1M profitable but nothing to write home about and: wouldn't have made the investment if they expected less than 1M long term.

Time will tell but free months don't bring in much money.

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Originally posted by RajCaj

Originally posted by MindTrigger

Originally posted by greyed-out

But how can 1.7 err 1.3 million paying subs not be a significant revenue generator to not make it a priority?

Because these idiots are still trying to get WoW sub numbers by making run of the mill themepark games.  They want 10 million players, and they aren't ever going to get them.  They should be concentrating on having several MMOs on the market in live development bringing them a total of 5 million+ players, and keeping players interested for 2+ years.

Corporate suits took over this industry a long time ago and the SWG NGE was the first major indication of it.  In the eyes of the corp and the investors, SWTOR is a winner.  It will make development and publishing money back and will generate income for years.  In their minds, the game is basically done and served its purpose.

This is not an MMO-only problem.  This bottom-line based greed and little focus on quality is happening in every industry in the United States and beyond.  Corporate greed is all that matters, while employees are treated like garbage, and the customer is never right.  Start getting used to it.  The only way it's going to change is if this country finally caves in under the weight of its own futility.

 

You can't look at year 2000 sub numbers and compare them today.  WoW changed the whole face of the market and brough in tens of millions of people who are now at least casually interested in MMO's.  There's a good chance we won't see another 10+ million player game again, and if we do, they will be anomalies that are a decade or more apart in frequency.  This means that there is a much larger player base out there today, and plenty of room for multiple successful games.

I agree that they are going with "proven" models, but the problem is that those models were never, ever a static target in the first place.  Video games live and die on innovation and evolution with very few exceptions.  To expect that the larger gaming  population was just going to be fine with the same games cranked out year after year was just stupid.  In my mind, there are only a few companies out there that really get it, such as CCP and ArenaNet.   CCP may not be huge, but they know their niche market and are making good money and keeping that game fresh year after year.

As far as repeating this process, I do believe that the market is finally starting to speak with their money.  Though, even if SWTOR has 800k players and has already made its money, back, it's still doing quite well.  Not well enough to deserve the investment money they locked down, but still very profitable. 

In my opinion, the best thing that could happen to this genre of games would be for major investors to abandon it, and let us get back to MMO games that are built by and for gamers.  They may not look as pretty, but they will end up being far more interesting over their lifetime.  Right now players have zero say in these games, and no matter what they want, they get whatever the suits think is best.

Frankly, I'm surprised at Ragnar with TSW.  He must have know that his followers were looking for more than just another story-driven themepark, yet that is what he is delivering.  I wonder if this was his idea, or if his hand was forced by suits.

Fair enough on the point about taking sub numbers from Ultima Onine.  In that case...I'll reference EVE Online (one of the leading sandbox MMORPGs) and it only has something around 300k subscribers iteself.  Point being, *most* people who enjoy video games for entertainment also have LOTS of other stuff going on in their lives.  Interuptions & a heavy work load sort of get in the way of traditional "Virtual World" MMORPGs.  I think Blizzard understood this, and took overt steps in developing WOW so that they could lower those traditional MMO barriers to entry (long term commitment, long play cycles, high dependency on other players to complete content, punative measures) in effort to pull in the larger gaming audience.  (See Blue Oceans & Red Seas Marketing Theory)

But yes, we agree on the fate of large mammoth sized AAA MMORPGs.  There is just too much competition in the MMO market to justify that kind of capital spent on a MMO project.  They will either transition back to big budget console games (where support & overhead costs are MUCH lower than MMOs), or scale down their scope & budget for MMOs (which would allow for courting smaller niche audiences)

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Originally posted by gervaise1

As to the game having paid back its investment - not possible at this moment in time. According to EA themselves they would not have made the investment if they did not expect 1M+ subscribers for the long haul (put at around 2 years depending on sub level, advertising etc.)

...

Doesn't matter what it is though. EA have said: 500k to break even (i.e. on a day-to-day basis); 1M profitable but nothing to write home about and: wouldn't have made the investment if they expected less than 1M long term.

---

Quote?

As far as I know they considered 500k subscribers "substantially profitable" and 300k subscribers figure was considered to break even.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/32784/EA_Old_Republic_MMO_To_Show_Profit_With_500000_Subscribers.php

I believe you got the numbers messed up - 500k nothing to write home, 300k subs to break even.

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by gervaise1

As to the game having paid back its investment - not possible at this moment in time. According to EA themselves they would not have made the investment if they did not expect 1M+ subscribers for the long haul (put at around 2 years depending on sub level, advertising etc.)

 

...

Doesn't matter what it is though. EA have said: 500k to break even (i.e. on a day-to-day basis); 1M profitable but nothing to write home about and: wouldn't have made the investment if they expected less than 1M long term.

---

 

Quote?

As far as I know they considered 500k subscribers "substantially profitable" and 300k subscribers figure was considered to break even.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/32784/EA_Old_Republic_MMO_To_Show_Profit_With_500000_Subscribers.php

I believe you got the numbers messed up - 500k nothing to write home, 300k subs to break even.

"at 500,000 subscribers, we'd break even. At a million, we'd be making a profit but nothing worth writing home about.

http://news.mmosite.com/content/a/2012-02-02/swtor_snatches_1_7_million_users.shtml#.T7O-yOvOyQw

And really, it's everywhere. Just use Google.

The Sims > SWTOR

Pathetic

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Originally posted by colddog04

"at 500,000 subscribers, we'd break even. At a million, we'd be making a profit but nothing worth writing home about.
http://news.mmosite.com/content/a/2012-02-02/swtor_snatches_1_7_million_users.shtml#.T7O-yOvOyQw
 
And really, it's everywhere. Just use Google.

---

The problem is, this is a quote from quote of quote and when you seek original source, it is non existent.

This is supposedly a source from this information:
http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/19915-electronic-arts-q3-fy12-earnings-call

But the source they got this information from is missing nor they use exact quote...

EDIT:

To show you what I mean.

Here is the official source of the information:
http://investor.ea.com/events.cfm?list=Featured,Future,Past

I guess Q&A are accessible via webcast only and I am lazy to register now..

But I found what seems to be a transcript from the webcast and here is the quote:

Arvind Bhatia - Sterne Agee: One last one from me, going back to Star Wars for a second, I think the only number in terms of profitability that you guys have talked about that I can remember is that it takes about 0.5 million subscribers to be profitable on a sustainable basis month to month. Has anything changed in terms of the launch interest there etcetera that would make you, want to update that or just to work with that assumption?

John Riccitiello - CEO: Well, we have made that comment a number of different times, but I basically said is, a profit volume subs we could breakeven at the margin. 1 million subs would be meaningfully profitable, but nothing to write home about, it would just -- certainly would not make us feel good about the investments to-date it would simply be a good business on an ongoing basis and then from there as we scale the business gets to be very attractive. I don't think anything has changed with regard to that general summary other than it looks like we can take the bad scenarios off the table at the present and what we're now trying to figure out is what combination of customer acquisition, managing them through the funnel and attrition will yield the P&L we're looking for going forward.

http://www.morningstar.com/earnings/34910064-electronic-arts-inc-ea-q3-2012.aspx?pindex=2&qindex=10

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Originally posted by musicmann
If a SW mmo had the combat of Jedi Outcast, the sandbox elements of SWG pre-cu and the space game of Jump To Lightspeed, It would have been a phenominal succes in my opinion. You are correct though. To many suits that have the majority of influence instead of the gamers who actually play the games.

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That would be sick and I would play that for years.

Originally posted by colddog04

Originally posted by Gdemami

 

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Originally posted by gervaise1

As to the game having paid back its investment - not possible at this moment in time. According to EA themselves they would not have made the investment if they did not expect 1M+ subscribers for the long haul (put at around 2 years depending on sub level, advertising etc.)

 

...

Doesn't matter what it is though. EA have said: 500k to break even (i.e. on a day-to-day basis); 1M profitable but nothing to write home about and: wouldn't have made the investment if they expected less than 1M long term.

---

 

Quote?

As far as I know they considered 500k subscribers "substantially profitable" and 300k subscribers figure was considered to break even.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/32784/EA_Old_Republic_MMO_To_Show_Profit_With_500000_Subscribers.php

I believe you got the numbers messed up - 500k nothing to write home, 300k subs to break even.

"at 500,000 subscribers, we'd break even. At a million, we'd be making a profit but nothing worth writing home about.

http://news.mmosite.com/content/a/2012-02-02/swtor_snatches_1_7_million_users.shtml#.T7O-yOvOyQw

 

And really, it's everywhere. Just use Google.

You guys are missing the larger point...

You don't invest several hundred million dollars in a project that has that capital tied up for 2+ years to earn the kind of profit margin 500k, or even 1 million, subscribers gives you.

You drop that kind of cash on an investment opportunity that yields something closer to what Blizzard is doing with WOW.  Not saying they need to have 10+ mill subscribers.....but if I had to guess, the investors in the project were probably hoping for a revenue stream closer to what 3-5 million subscribers would provide.

Again, think about all the other things you could have invested 200 million dollars in, and earned larger profit margin in half the time, with half the risk.

Another team of developers & a reputable publishing house could have made a game that yielded 300-500k subs WITHOUT having to pay Lucas Arts for Star Wars IP, WITHOUT having to pay for the sophisticated networking technology, and WITHOUT having to pay top dollar artists & soundtrack for a 2+ year project.

Originally posted by Dwarfman420

The Sims > SWTOR

 

Pathetic

Sim CITY! > SWTOR 

Super Pathetic

(When the hell was the last Sim City game released?)